


Possession

by MizJoely



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Paranormal, Sherlolly - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-30
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-01-06 17:01:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 31,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1109321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/pseuds/MizJoely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a recently returned-from-the-dead Sherlock goes to the roof of St. Bart's to confront his ghosts, he doesn't expect to do so literally. But the angry spirit of Jim Moriarty has plans of his own…especially when it comes to a certain Pathologist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue - The View From On High

It was cold, windy, damp. So different to the last time he'd been on this rooftop, gazing down at the street below. Standing on the ledge, about to jump, Jim Moriarty's corpse with its head in a pool of blood and brains cooling on the asphalt behind him. He gazed down at the street from his perch on the very same ledge, this time his only goal the exorcising of personal demons that continued to plague him. The fear of heights was temporary, restricted only to certain London rooftops, including this one, but he needed to rid himself of the ridiculous phobia before it grew and eventually crippled him.

He took a deep breath, opened his tightly shut eyes, and finally allowed himself to look down. Down to the site of his fall. The place where John Watson had rushed to his side, staring at him in shock and disbelief. The place where he'd “died.”

A moment's dizziness overtook him, but he shook it off. Resolutely continued to stare down at the pavement far beneath his feet. Took a deep, steadying breath. Stepped back off the ledge and onto the roof proper. Demon faced, phobia hopefully vanquished, he remained for a moment, eyes closed, simply breathing in the familiar scents of the London air, a miasma of trash and traffic and cooking and...blood?

His eyes snapped open and he looked around for the source of that familiar tang. There should be no lingering smell of blood on the rooftop, not after two full years. Not after rains and the clean-up crews and certainly not after new asphalt shingles had been laid only three weeks ago. So where...

_Well, I can't say I'm surprised to see you up here, Sherlock. It was only a matter of time, wasn't it?_

He stiffened at the sound of that voice, familiar, hated...belonging to a dead man.

A truly dead man, not one who'd merely played dead like himself. Jim Moriarty had killed himself, put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger, and there was no coming back from the kind of damage Sherlock had seen. As if that wasn’t enough evidence, his body had been recovered by Mycroft's men and his identity confirmed. James Moriarty was well and truly dead.

So why was Sherlock hearing his voice now?

His first thought was that it was some kind of trickery; a hidden microphone, a voice impersonator, or (less likely but not impossible given the reason for his presence on the rooftop) even an audible hallucination brought on by the ambiance of this place, a place it had taken him two months to face down since his return. The lingering scent of blood would be explained by such an internal phenomenon as well, laced as it now was with the acrid tang of gunpowder.

It had to be his own mind playing tricks on him. He’d come to this rooftop to lay the ghost of his final confrontation with Jim Moriarty to rest, and thus had conjured up more visceral memories of that day as well.

_Ooh, I do love watching your mind at work, Sherlock. Such a well-oiled machine, so busy dismissing the impossible in favor of...what, exactly? What am I, Sherlock? How are you hearing me?_

With a jolt he realized that the voice was coming from within his own mind, was nothing his ears were actually hearing. _His_ voice. Moriarty. Even conjured from his memory and imagination, he knew he would never have put those words in the dead man’s mouth. Which meant…

_No_. He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the impossibility that had presented itself to him in the form of a theory. Ridiculous. Insanity. He must be losing his mind, that well-oiled machine he was justifiably proud of. Else he wouldn't even be considering...

_Considering what, Sherlock? The possibility of some form of life after death? Of the existence of spirits, ghosts, demons and angels as more than abstract concepts? Daddy's impressed! I would have thought you'd fight the idea a bit harder, Mr. Pragmatic._

The voice, a mere whisper at first, was gaining in volume and power until it sounded as clearly in his mind as the voice of a living man would in his ear. Moriarty's voice and no other, right down to the light Irish lilt, the rising and falling inflection, the faint tone of mockery in every word.

He scanned the rooftop again almost desperately. There was no one else. He was alone.

He’d told no one but Molly of his intention to return here today, and only moments before making the move from statement to action. No time for anyone to set up some kind of elaborate hoax, unless such a plot had already been put in place…no. Ridiculous waste of time and effort for either a prank or an attempt to discommode him. Especially since Moran had been taken down, the last cog in the vast machinery that had once been Moriarty's criminal empire.

Shaking his head again, he started toward the stairwell, unwilling to give any possible observer a chance to either see how unsettled he really was by the odd occurrences he’d just experienced, or possibly take a bead on him with a sniper rifle. Of course, if that was the goal he’d already made a target of himself; the fact that he was still alive indicated the need to discard such a theory.

No, it was certainly his own mind that was playing tricks on him. Perhaps it had been a mistake to come back to the roof, to confront the site of his fall from grace. Clearly that desire had awakened some form of guilt or regret from deep within him, although until this very moment he would have scoffed at the very idea. Jim Moriarty had been an evil, depraved murderer who’d got exactly what he'd deserved: a lonely death at his own hands.

_My, aren't we judgmental today_ , the mocking voice sounded in his mind. He shook his head as if to dislodge it, only to hear it devolve into a high-pitched giggle of amusement. _Oh, Sherlock, you're not getting rid of me that easily. No, I'm in here now and I'm not leaving. In fact, I think it's time you went away for a bit and let me take control, hmm?_

Sherlock’s rapid steps faltered and halted as he felt some unseen force seize control of him. He stumbled to one knee, steadying himself automatically as his hand slapped onto the filthy asphalt shingles, his mind locked in a type of battle he’d never fought before. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, overcome by a dizziness so profound it seemed he could actually feel the revolving of the world around him, tilting beneath his hands and knees as he scrambled for control of his thoughts…and lost.

In that moment found himself falling, over and over, tumbling through his own mind to vanish into some dark, inaccessible hole, his identity forced away from the living world.

When his eyes opened, it was no longer Sherlock Holmes looking out through them. They flashed and glowed silver for the briefest of moments: Jim Moriarty had taken possession, and the gleeful grin that split his features had very little of sanity about it.


	2. Things To See, People To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jim Moriarty puts his plans in motion. And no one's gonna like them but him.

Molly frowned as her mobile rang, distracting her from the pathogen she was researching online. What did Sherlock want now? She’d already played lookout for him when he insisted on returning to the roof, the scene of the crime, as it were, from two years ago. He’d been up there far longer than the five minutes he’d assured her it would take for him to do whatever it was he intended to do, long enough for her to get fidgety and start half-way up the stairs to check on him. The sight of him barreling down towards her had relieved her mind; not that she’d been worried, exactly, that he was going to dive off the roof for a second time, but still. Part of her, the deepest, most secret part of her heart, would never stop worrying about him. Ever.

He’d left without so much as a single word, simply nodding when she called a sarcastic: “You’re welcome!” after his retreating form, the Belstaff buttoned up to his chin and his hands deep in the coat’s pockets. She’d shrugged and taken the stairs back down to the basement, figuring she might as well get some exercise out of this little excursion before returning to the work Sherlock had interrupted.

She couldn’t keep a smile from her lips even though she told herself she was annoyed with him. Perhaps the message – he’d sent a text, naturally – would be an apology? He did that more frequently now that he’d returned from the ‘dead,’ just as he was a bit nicer to her since admitting that she counted and that he’d always trusted her.

Of course, he wasn’t the only one who’d changed since that dramatic day two years past. She’d spent enough time in his battered and bruised presence to lose a little of the near-awe she’d always felt for him. Oh, his incredibly agile mind still impressed her; she still loved him, deeply and profoundly and still quite unrequitedly (even through her disastrous engagement to Tom Hicks, which had ended badly two days after Sherlock's return when the other man had realized exactly how Molly felt about the no-longer-dead consulting detective), but he’d become a little more human to her that day, the man willing to sacrifice so much to keep his friends safe. She’d begun to understand him, just a bit, just enough for her to be able to stand up to him when he was biting and sarcastic and practically climbing the walls with boredom while waiting for enough time to pass to allow him to emerge from her flat and begin his mission to dismantle the criminal labyrinth the late Jim Moriarty had left behind.

There was good reason for Molly to continue to worry about Sherlock Holmes; after all, he’d nearly died for real the day of his return, flushed out of hiding by Sebastian Moran, Moriarty’s former lieutenant and marksman. The sniper had almost killed John Watson as well, but now he was behind bars and John and Sherlock were alive and kicking. All’s well that ends well, wasn’t that what the Bard said?

Her mobile gave another impatient little beep, reminding her that while she'd been drifting in her thoughts there was a message waiting for her.

She looked and smiled. From Sherlock, as expected. _Meet me at the flat after your shift. Bring dinner. Thai, not Chinese. SH_

She shook her head, still grinning. Typical Sherlock, apologizing without apologizing. She would pick up the Thai from the place near the Tube station that let out nearest his Baker Street flat, and after she left for home she'd find the money to cover the cost tucked discreetly into an inner pocket of her handbag. She responded to the text in the affirmative, heroically holding back on the urge to sign it “Love, Molly XXOO” even in jest, and tucked her mobile back into her lab coat pocket.

She tried to focus on her research, but her mind kept returning to her first sight of Sherlock after he'd come back to London, to the life he'd been forced to leave behind, the damage that had been caused to more than just him when he jumped off the roof and faked his death. He’d nearly scared her out of her skin, lurking in the shadows of the staff changing room at the end of an overnight shift, but knowing that he was done with his undercover life had been all she needed to hear to put a smile back on her face.

The smile hadn’t lasted as he admitted to seeing John – and further admitted that the reunion hadn’t exactly gone smoothly. Of course, the growing bruise that had decorated his cheek attested to that. John had been so angry with him; even now, nearly two months later, he still occasionally could be heard muttering about stupid bastards and rooftops under his breath.

He seemed to reserve the bulk of his lingering resentment for Sherlock, although Molly had unflinchingly accepted he harsh words he'd had for her once he learned of her part in the plan. Only the fact that, once Sherlock had vanished from her flat a week after she'd smuggled him in, she'd had no idea if he was still alive, kept John from completely blowing up at her for pretending to grieve along with him.

Not that she'd actually done any pretending; her worries and fears for Sherlock's safety might not have been the same as John's genuine grief for the supposed loss of his best friend, or as damaging to her psyche, but she'd felt them and John had been told by her – and, surprisingly enough, by Sherlock – that he had no right to belittle her feelings just because she'd known Sherlock had faked his suicide. Nor because she’d helped him to do it.

Well, John had a new girlfriend to keep him busy at the moment; with any luck, Mary would help him reach a point where he could fully forgive Sherlock. He was really, really close, Molly could tell; he’d started his blog up again and even gone on a couple of cases with Sherlock already. Granted, DI Lestrade had a lot to do with that, but still. Progress was progress.

John and Sherlock’s relationship was progressing, John and Mary’s relationship was progressing, even her own friendship with Sherlock was progressing. She was the only one who seemed to have taken a step backwards, after trying so hard to move on with her life and find love with someone who actually returned her feelings.

Molly repressed a sigh as her mind wistfully lingered on the fact that she’d hoped things would progress beyond mere friendship with Sherlock someday, but she was a practical girl at heart and would take what she could get. If Sherlock couldn’t offer her more than friendship, well, it was certainly better than the dismissive way he’d treated her for the bulk of their working relationship.

“Back to work, Molly Hooper,” she ordered herself. Dinner was still more than four hours away, after all.

oOo

Sherlock’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction and his lips curled in a smile as he read the text from Molly Hooper. Good. She would bring dinner, they would eat it, and then…

His eyes glowed a soft, gossamer silver as Moriarty’s hold on Sherlock’s mind slipped, just the slightest bit, Sherlock surging from his mental prison as the malevolent spirit allowed him to see just what he had planned for the sweet little pathologist after dinner. The struggle for control was brief, Sherlock’s face morphing from gleeful satisfaction to a snarl of rage as his prisoner fought to eject his unwanted mental tenant and the spirit of Jim Moriarty fought just as hard to retain control.

The supernatural force won out over the man who until a few hours ago had not believed even in the smallest measure that such an entity could ever exist. Weakened by the struggle, Moriarty felt Sherlock’s heart pounding in his chest, his breath coming in gasps as he muttered: “Good try, darling, but we both know I’ll always come out on top.”

Gradually his heartbeat and breathing returned to normal, and Sherlock's eyes returned to their indeterminate blue-green shade. To outward appearances, he was Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective, coolly in control of himself as always. His lip curled in another dark smile. “Appearances can be sooo deceiving, can’t they?” he whispered as he donned Sherlock’s – his, now – favorite black coat and left the flat.

There was a limit to the amount of time he could spend inhabiting Sherlock’s body, and there was a lot he needed to accomplish before he was eventually forced to seek a new host. Right now, for example, he had a lunch date with John Watson and his girlfriend, Mary Morstan, that he absolutely could not miss. 

It was going to be absolutely _delicious_.


	3. Picking at the Cracks in the Facade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Possessed!Sherlock puts John and Mary through a little emotional turmoil. Just the warm up for the main course.

“Really, Sherlock? _Really_? You had to cut her to pieces like that?”

John Watson was furious, absolutely, positively furious with his flatmate, and he wasn’t about to let him off the hook, not this time. Not after that absolute disaster of a lunch. The only reason he hadn’t already punched him was because he’d been too busy trying to calm a seething Mary to be bothered with giving Sherlock the beating he truly deserved for being such an arse.

It was as if he'd reverted to behaviors John thought the fall from the roof of St. Bart's had burned out of him. He’d been different since his return, less of a prat to the people whose lives had hung, all unknowingly, in the balance due to Moriarty’s last act as a living man. It was a good thing that bastard was dead, or John would have happily killed him himself.

Just as, at the moment, he felt perfectly capable of murdering his so-called best friend. He slammed the door to the flat shut as he stormed in and confronted Sherlock, who had sprawled out in his chair with a self-satisfied smirk on his face that only served to fuel John’s ever-growing ire. 

Sherlock finally looked up at him, having the gall to roll his eyes and huff in that impatient way he had. “Really, John,” he drawled, “what did you expect? For me to just lie down and let your latest conquest try and wrap me around her little finger the way she’s clearly done to you?” The corner of his upper lip lifted in a sneer. “But then, it’s not her little finger she’s using to control you, is it? No, it’s her sweet little pus…”

“Sherlock!” John half-shouted as he took a menacing step forward, fists clenched at his sides. He was shaking with rage, barely holding onto his control as he snapped: “Don’t you even go there, Sherlock. I love Mary, you know that…”

Sherlock jumped to his feet and got right in his face with those words, breathing nearly as hard as John was, eyes narrowed, hands loose at his sides as he hissed out: “Bullshit. You don’t love her, you love getting your cock sucked every night without having to take her out to dinner and a movie first.”

John didn’t even realize he’d punched Sherlock until suddenly he was standing over the other man’s prone body, watching him try to staunch the flow of blood from his nose as he…laughed?

John’s eyes narrowed. Something wasn’t right here, not right at all. “Christ, Sherlock, what have you taken?” he demanded, gone from angry boyfriend to concerned friend and doctor in a heartbeat. He crouched down to try and get a clear look at his friend’s eyes, but Sherlock waved him away, still laughing, still bleeding, fumbling in his pocket for a handkerchief and pressing it to his face.

“Sorry to disappoint you, John, but a piss test won’t show any foreign contaminants in my system,” he said as his laughter died down. The two men glowered at each other until Sherlock finally sighed and said: “Let me guess. That was crossing the line, that last comment, however accurate?”

John felt the urge to punch him again, fought it down grimly. The man was still on his back on the floor, after all. “Yeah, Sherlock, that crossed a line. The line of good taste, friendship – you name it, you crossed it. Now tell me _why_.” Because there absolutely had to be a reason; even Sherlock wasn't this much of a dick. Especially lately. Moody, unpredictable, easily bored – all that and more, but not this much of a dick.

Sherlock actually looked contrite as he answered. “Sorry, John, it’s just…I went to the roof of St. Bart’s earlier today. Molly lent me the key.”

John’s face instantly changed from anger to concern. “Christ, why didn’t you tell me? Better still, why didn’t you ask me to come up with you? I know how you feel about sentiment, but even you aren’t made of iron, Sherlock. You shouldn’t have gone by yourself.”

“You’re right, John, I shouldn’t have,” Sherlock agreed. John frowned; was that a flash of glee he saw on the other man’s face? No, he must have imagined it; he’d been home and 'alive' for two months now and facing that bloody rooftop had been something he hadn’t been able to manage until now. Just as it had taken John almost a year to be able to even go near the vicinity of St. Bart’s. 

Sherlock was speaking again while John's mind wandered. “It was a mistake and I’m afraid it’s put me a bit out of temper.” A wry grin as he levered himself up to a sitting position, not bothering to rise from the floor as he continued to hold his handkerchief to his bloody nose. “Please tender my apologies to Miss Morstan, and tell her it won’t happen again.” He paused, head tilted consideringly. “Well. I shall try not to let it happen again. Since I give the relationship less than six months, it shouldn’t be too difficult.”

John shook his head and folded his arms across his chest. He’d been about to extend a hand and help Sherlock back to his feet, but of course the bloody arse couldn’t keep his mouth shut. “You know what, Sherlock? You believe what you want, but when I ask you to be best man at my wedding, you remember what a dick you were the first time you met my future wife, yeah?”

With that, he stormed out of the flat, not bothering to shut the door behind him as he clattered down the stairs. He’d managed to calm Mary down before putting her in a taxi and sending her home, but now he felt the need to see for himself that she was doing all right. And to maybe get a little calming down from her as well, seeing as Sherlock had just undone all the goodwill he’d temporarily regained.

oOo

Moriarty gazed through Sherlock’s eyes, watching with a satisfied smirk on his face as John Watson rode off in the back of the cab that had stopped at his hail. “Oh, Johnny boy, the hoops I’m going to make you jump through,” he murmured softly as he allowed the curtain to drop back into place. “If you think I made Miss Morstan upset now, just wait until the next time I see the two of you.”

It had been well worth the punch, which had been much less of a pummeling than he’d expected to receive at John’s hands, to be honest. Still, it would be more than enough to stir Molly’s sympathy. Not that the stupid little bint needed much in the way of encouragement to want to put her hands all over Sherlock’s body, but every little bit helped when the object of the game wasn’t something as simple and boring as mere seduction.

Oh, no, when he was through with Sherlock Holmes’ body, the very people he’d gone to such lengths to save would hate him more than they’d ever hated anyone in their lives.

Especially the stupid, pathetic, love-struck little cunt that helped him fake his suicide right under Moriarty’s own nose.

_Don’t like it, do you? Getting a taste of your own medicine. Being outsmarted by someone you dismissed as hopelessly ordinary._

That supercilious, snotty voice ringing through his head…how the hell had Sherlock escaped his spider hole this time? “Naughty, Sherlock! I’m in charge now, remember? So don’t even think about having another go at taking back over.” _You’ll be trapped inside you own brain until I decide to let you back out, and not a second sooner,_ he thought with a mental trill of laughter, enjoying the fact that Sherlock only knew what he wanted him to – and that his prisoner would have no idea that there was a time limit to their little reunion. _Remember, I’ve had two years to get this whole ghost thing down; you didn't really think I spent all that time up on the roof waiting for you, did you?_

He sensed the stillness of his adversary’s restless mind at that little revelation; wonderful, the man actually did think Moriarty had been – what, just up there, brooding and waiting for his favorite plaything to come back and give him a reason to live again? Oh no; although he'd been trapped by the physical confines of the hospital (and still had no idea why) since the first moment he'd found himself hovering over his own lifeless body, he’d been far from idle.

Well, actually he had been somewhat idle at first, the shock of finding himself still existing even after blowing his own brains out keeping him frozen for several crucial minutes. He'd watched from his incorporeal vantage point a hundred feet above Sherlock's head as the other man jumped, as he pulled off his sleight-of-hand trick, fooled his pet Watson into believing he'd actually died...and Moriarty had howled with frustration at the knowledge that he could do absolutely nothing to change things, to contact his snipers and inform them of the cheat, unaware at the time of the potential in his new form. 

No, he'd been little other than an ectoplasmic ball of rage for weeks after that, until he regained control of himself and set to work learning the limits of his abilities as a spirit, eventually discovering how to take over and control a living, breathing body, bend it to his will, keep the original owner locked away and helpless while he did what he liked. It was unfortunate that the bodies could only contain his spirit for a few days at a time, but he got a great deal of enjoyment out of watching the people he’d possessed either scrabble for explanations as to their erratic behavior or curl into unresponsive balls, catatonic, after he'd been forced to leave.

He’d kept it fairly low-key (for him), not killing anyone or doing any serious damage, and not just in order to keep from being found out; he was saving all that for the day he knew would eventually come. The day Sherlock Holmes returned to the roof from which he was meant to have jumped to his death. Because just taking him over in the hospital itself wasn’t going to be nearly as much fun, and certainly nowhere near as ironic.

What was more, when the time came for Jim Moriarty to give up this body, Sherlock Holmes was going to go right back up to that rooftop and jump for a second time. Only this time the outcome was going to be the one Jim Moriarty dictated. The one he would watch and gloat over until his adversary was nothing but a bloody patch on the pavement below. And to make it even more glorious, no one would care, because right up until that point Sherlock Holmes was going to be very, very busy destroying all those precious friendships he’d somehow managed to create for himself.

All of them: John Watson (well begun by today's mischief, a mere prelude of things to come), the irritating Martha Hudson, DI Lestrade, all of them. This time no one would be forgotten or overlooked.

Especially not Molly. Fucking. Hooper.

He allowed his prisoner selective access to his memories of those early days and experiments before mentally 'speaking' to him again. _I kept an eye on you, you know. Waited for the day to come when you finally decided to confront your new-found fear of heights, the one you think nobody knows about,_ he taunted. _Your emotions, always so controlled, they were right on the surface, so easy for me to slip inside you while you fought down your demons._ Another mocking laugh. _Too bad you didn't know one of those demons was more of the literal than the metaphorical kind, eh?_

No response. He shrugged; oh well. No doubt his prisoner was busy analyzing away at what he'd just been told, but he wasn't worried about Sherlock Holmes breaking free from this trap. No, he'd stay right where he was until the moment his body stepped off the ledge and began the free-fall to his death.

And Jim Moriarty was going to savor every second of that descent.


	4. Without Consent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning for noncon in this chapter as Moriarty goes from emotional damage to physical.

“Sherlock! What happened? You've been injured!” 

Molly pushed the door shut behind her, the bag of Thai take-away and her purse hastily dropped to the floor as she rushed to Sherlock's side to get a closer look at him. His poor nose was swollen and red, and there was a bloody handkerchief sitting crumpled up on the low table facing his sofa, where he was currently lying, head back and one hand over his eyes. 

As she reached his side, he lowered his arm and looked at her, beaming widely – and a bit uncharacteristically. “Molly! You're here! Fantastic, I'm starving!” 

He started to jump to his feet, but Molly stopped him with her hand on his shoulder. “Sherlock, your nose...what happened?” she asked again, more insistently this time. 

He reached up and patted the end of his nose gingerly, as if he'd forgotten all about it. “Oh, that.” He shrugged and seemed to find the ceiling fascinating all of a sudden. “John hit me.”

“What? Why?” Molly asked as she sank down onto the low table fronting the sofa, still studying his face anxiously. “What happened?”

He shrugged again, but this time when he attempted to rise, Molly let him, watching as he wandered to the door and retrieved their dinner from where it had landed, still safe in the Styrofoam take-away containers, thank goodness. “Oh, he took me to meet his latest conquest and it didn't go quite as well as he'd hoped.”

His voice was dismissive, almost bored, and Molly was on her feet in a shot, blocking him from entering the kitchen, hands on hips and eyebrows lowered in a frown as she said: “You said something horrible to Mary, didn't you. Oh, Sherlock, how could you?” Her voice caught a bit and she found herself blinking back sudden tears as she continued speaking. “She's not a 'conquest,' you git! She's the reason he was able to, to go on after you j-jumped.” Oh, the despised stutter was back. Great, just flipping great. She took a steadying breath and finished up. “You had better fix this, Sherlock. John is your closest friend and he loves Mary, really loves her. I think – I think she might be the one.”

Sherlock regarded her through the entire muddled speech, face expressionless, the take-away bag dangling from one hand. As she closed her mouth and waited for him to say something – anything – he surprised her by moving closer to her, dropping the bag, darting his head forward...

...and kissing her. 

Her brain seemed to freeze at the impossibility of the moment. Sherlock Holmes was kissing her. His mouth was on hers, his arms were around her, and He. Was. _Kissing_ her.

For a few moments Molly simply melted into his embrace. It had finally happened; Sherlock had finally taken the step that would change their relationship, and all she felt was blind joy.

Until the kiss subtly began to alter. Until his tongue was probing for entrance to her mouth, thrusting demandingly between her lips. Until his hands were roaming over her body, tugging at her clothing, squeezing her breasts as he used his superior size and strength to shove her up against the wall. One knee was wedged between her thighs, the hard ridge of his arousal hot and heavy against her hip, and the voice of reason was screaming to be heard at the suddenness of it all.

“Sherlock!” she gasped out, turning her head and ending the kiss, struggling to push his hands away from where they’d latched onto hip and breast. “What, what are you doing?”

“Oh, Molly, don't try to pretend you don't want this.” Sherlock’s voice was lightly mocking as he refused to budge, digging his fingers more tightly into her flesh, hard enough to draw a protesting whimper from her throat. His face was close to hers, so close she felt his breath stirring the loose hairs on the side of her face and raising goose bumps in spite of her burst of panic. “Isn't this what you've been dreaming about every single night since you first met me?”

His grasp loosened, turned into a series of soft caresses as the hand on her hip inched its way upward, ghosting across her bare skin while the hand on her breast stroked softly, rousing her nipple into a peak before she knew what was happening. He made as if to kiss her again, but she raised one hand and pressed it against his mouth, pushing his head back, squirming beneath his hold in another unsuccessful attempt to free herself from his looming form. “Sherlock, this is – it's too fast. It's not like you, I don't understand...”

He rolled his eyes with an impatient huff. “There's nothing to understand, Molly. You want me, I want you, and I've finally decided there's no reason to pretend otherwise.” There was a look of sly malice in his eyes as he added, “Especially now that you’ve dumped that poor excuse for a lookalike you engaged yourself to – or should I say, that second rate ‘Sher _lock_ -alike’?” He tsked. “Honestly, Molly, what _were_ you thinking?”

Then he kissed her again, and she was too stunned to stop him, her brain frozen and her body as well. Then the voice in her mind was screaming at her, warning her that this was wrong, something wasn't right, she needed to stop this... 

“Stop!” she gasped out as his lips descended to her neck, his hands now pinning her by her shoulders. “Sherlock, please,” she managed to choke out in spite of the rising fear clogging her throat. “This isn't...it isn't you, not like you at all.” She peered closer into his eyes as a sudden suspicion hit her. “Sherlock, did you take something...” Her voice trailed off and her own eyes widened as she saw his irises; the blue-green with flecks of amber was slowly disappearing, flooded from the pupils out by a slow, creeping tide of darkest brown, nearly black. She sucked in a shocked breath, frozen by the unnatural sight.

“Mmm, that's very sweet, you're still trying to find some reason for me to act like this, to make it not just Sherlock being Sherlock, a self-centered control freak,” he replied with a cold chuckle, not reacting in the slightest to her sudden lack of movement, the way she was still staring, almost hypnotized, watching as his eyes completely changed color. “Typical Molly, always trying to fix things, to make them right, to see the world through rose colored fucking lenses.”

His mouth returned to her neck, biting down hard enough to draw a ragged cry of pain from her lips, jolting her from her paralysis. “So sorry to disappoint you, Saint Molly, but Sherlock isn't under the influence of drugs tonight. No one's jabbed him with a needle and brought this on him. It's how he's always felt about you. Shall I let you in on a little secret?” he asked, his breath warm on her ear. “He's always wanted you, just never allowed himself to indulge. It's why he's always treated you like shit, kept you at arm's length but never further away – he couldn’t take you for himself the way he wanted to, but he always made damn sure no one else could have you, either. It’s why you never could find the right bloke, until _he_ was out of the picture.”

She was shaking now, truly terrified at the sound of Sherlock referring to himself in the third person. But that was nothing to the panic that overcame her as he added, his voice inexplicably rising in a mocking Irish lilt: “It’s why it was so fucking easy to prance into the lab and give him all the clues he needed to sabotage yet another of your pathetic attempts at a relationship, by outing me as gay.”

Oh God. Sherlock had completely lost it; he'd snapped, thought he was Jim Moriarty. It had to be some kind of delayed shock from his visit to the St. Bart's rooftop earlier in the day, a PTSD flashback or something. Or was it possible that it was the effects of some kind of designer drug he'd taken or been given – how else to explain the unsettling, impossible change in his eyes? “Sherlock,” she said, keeping her voice as steady and soothing as she could in spite of her fears. “Please, you have to listen to me...”

He laughed, head thrown back as his hands moved up to grasp either side of her face. When the laughter stopped, he leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers, eyes closed, breathing heavily. “No, Molly,” he said softly when he'd recovered well enough to speak. “I don't have to do anything except what I want to do. And right now, I really want to kiss you again.”

And he did, despite her protests, her attempts to extricate herself from his hold. In desperation she bit down on his lip, hard, and he pulled away with a snarl of rage. She tried to dodge away from him, opening her mouth to shout for help, but one of his hands was around her throat and the other was tearing at her clothing and things had gone horribly wrong so quickly that she could barely wrap her head around it. She was trying not to panic, trying to find a way to free herself, but her vision was slowly darkening as Sherlock's hand tightened its grip on her throat, cutting off her breath as well as her screams; the blood was pounding in her ears, and she was clawing ineffectually at him, her movements growing more and more feeble as her oxygen supply disappeared. Then everything went dark, the last thing she saw Sherlock’s inexplicably dark brown eyes boring into hers.

oOo

Molly came back to consciousness slowly, wheezing and gasping, to find that she was lying on some unyielding surface; where was she, what had happened, why was there a heavy weight on her body, a slight burn between her legs...

Memory returned in a rush and her eyes widened as she opened her eyes and saw Sherlock's naked body resting above hers. No, not just resting above her; he was moving rhythmically against her, lowering his head to her throat and nipping it at. He was the cause of the burn, of the sense of weight and not-rightness she was feeling...oh God, he was...no, this wasn't right, Sherlock couldn't possibly be doing _that_ to her...

But he was. He was, oh God, no, he was inside her; she could feel it now, strained to push him off her but he was too heavy and her throat hurt terribly and her head as well, blood pounding in synchronous rhythm with the movement of his body above and inside hers.

“Mmm,” he murmured when she finally realized how futile it was to keep struggling, when her hands fell limply to her sides and the tears began streaming from her eyes. “Just as tight and wet and good as I expected. Of course, you could move your bum a bit, give us a better ride, eh?” He grinned down at her, a savage, gleeful grin that was completely foreign to his features, his eyes still that dark brown, nearly black of the predator he'd suddenly morphed into. Not that Sherlock was anyone's pushover, but this feral cruelty was alien to him.

“No? Can't see your way to enjoying your reward? Not even the littlest bit?” Oh, his voice, so cruel, so mocking, far, far worse than anything cutting or unkind he'd ever said to her in the past. Still the hint of the Irish to it, but back into his own deep baritone. He'd gone mad, a temporary madness she knew he would regret as soon as it passed, but until then, until he regained his senses, all she could do was endure what was already happening to her at the hands of the man she loved.

She nearly gagged as he pressed his mouth to hers, sliding his tongue along her lips, forcing them open – and whimpered as she tasted herself on his mouth, thrashing her head from side to side in attempt to escape the enforced intimacy. Why had he...

“Had to get you ready for me, Molly, and I've been mad for another taste of you since you dumped me.”

There it was again; not Sherlock's voice, but _Jim's_. Not just the accent and the words, but something more, something harder to define. If Sherlock had ever shown any talent at mimicry she'd understand, but even when in disguise John described his changes in voice only as something slightly different than normal; he'd certainly never indicated Sherlock could literally change his voice. Or was she only hearing what she wanted to hear, some sign that this wasn't actually Sherlock doing these things to her, in spite of the evidence of her eyes and body?

When she chanced a look at his face, she gasped as she saw that his eyes had returned to their normal blue-green, the flecks of amber nearly swallowed up by his blown-back pupils. As she watched, almost distracted enough by the sight to forget what he was doing to her, they once again seemed to bleed dark brown from the pupils out, until his eyes were no longer those of Sherlock Holmes – but were entirely Jim Moriarty.

“Close,” he gasped out, his hands digging painfully into her upper arms. She winced, bit her lip, closed her eyes, then snapped them open with something very like shock as he muttered: “There's a love, Molly. How could you doubt me after this?”

Those had been the very words 'Jim from IT' had spoken to her after their first – and only – sexual encounter. She'd never repeated them to anyone, never written them in her blog or jotted them down in an idle moment, never shared them with DI Lestrade when she was questioned about her involvement with him after he'd tried to kill John and Sherlock.

Something was very, very wrong here. Her skin prickled and she felt a coil of nausea as she broke out in a cold sweat. No matter what seemed to be happening to her, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t Sherlock drugged up or gone mad and raping her.

It was Jim Moriarty.


	5. Whatever Remains, However Improbable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of the attack on Molly...will John believe her?

“Fuck.”

Mary Morstan – blonde, blue-eyed, and buxom, the three B's as she laughingly put it when in the mood to tease John about the way he’d described her in his blog after their first meeting – looked over his shoulder to see who the text was from. “Is it the dick you call a flatmate?” she asked as she returned to nibbling on John's ear. “Tell him to sod off, you're busy getting your cock sucked by your latest 'conquest'.”

She still couldn't believe that bastard had had the nerve to taunt John about his relationship with her, and in such a cruel manner. Even John's excuse that Sherlock was having a bad reaction to confronting the site of his faked suicide wasn't enough to soothe her considerable ire; the son of a bitch had chosen the wrong woman to fuck with.

“No, it's not him,” John replied absently. “It's Mrs. Hudson...shit, what's he done now?” he groaned as Mary gave in to the inevitable and scooted to his side, allowing him to roll over onto his back.

They were in her bed, the covers askew and both completely naked, having spent the better part of the evening fucking each other's brains out in the aftermath of their disastrous lunch with Sherlock bloody Holmes and his massive ego. She really wanted to get on with the consulting detective, for John's sake, but he wasn't making it easy. Yes, John had warned her he would most likely go out of his way to be nasty to her, to try and bait her into a reaction, but what that man had said about her – however true some of it might be – was absolutely unconscionable. The next time she saw him he was going to get the sharp edge of her tongue...and not in the way she'd just been giving it to her lovely Johnny.

“Shit!” The swear was more forceful this time; Mary sat up and watched as John scrambled out from beneath the rumpled covers and started shoving his clothes back on. “Mary, something's happened back at the flat, I have to go.”

“What is it?” she asked, jumping out of bed and hunting for her own clothing. They hadn't exactly been neat about where things landed when they'd been removed. “What's wrong? Can I help?”

She was a nurse, studying nights to earn her medical degree, a slow course to take but the only way she could afford her dream of becoming a pediatrician one day. She'd always been patient, at least when it came to achieving her goals. 

John hesitated in the middle of shoving his socks back onto his feet; she could see the indecision in his eyes as he considered her offer. “Not sure,” he finally replied. “Mrs. Hudson's message says it's urgent, it's about Molly – but that's it. No details. With the mood he's been in today, Sherlock probably said something unforgivable to her, too. No,” he finally decided as he pulled her into his arms and gave her a distracted kiss. “I'd better go alone. Molly barely knows you, and if Sherlock's got her upset enough to go to Mrs. Hudson, she might not appreciate more of an audience than the two of us.” He smiled apologetically. “Don't hate me, yeah?”

“Never, John Watson,” she replied, pulling his face close to hers for another kiss, this one a bit more lingering than the soft peck he'd given her a moment earlier. “Just call me if it turns out to be a medical emergency instead.”

Although she had no way of knowing it at the time, those words would come back to haunt her in the days to come.

oOo

“He did what…no, I can’t…”

Words failed John as he stared at Molly’s tearstained face. She was huddled into an oversized dressing-gown belonging to Mrs. Hudson, her eyes enormous and haunted in a way he hadn’t seen since the day he confronted her about her knowledge of Sherlock’s survival after his supposed suicide. John's gaze moved downward as Molly reached up to tug at the dressing-gown's lapels, revealing an ugly circle of darkening bruises around her throat.

Bruises that would doubtlessly exactly match the spread of Sherlock’s hands.

“He went tearing out of here,” Mrs. Hudson said, launching back into the narrative John’s incredulous exclamation had interrupted. He had never seen her so angry, so hurt and bewildered all at once, and suspected his own face reflected the same mix of emotions. However, when she glanced at Molly, it wasn’t only concern that softened her features; she seemed uncertain as well. “Tell him, Molly,” she said in her gentlest, most soothing voice. “Tell John what you told me, luv.”

Molly seemed to shrink into herself a bit before suddenly straightening her posture, folding her hands on her laps to still their nervous twitching. Without removing her gaze from John’s face, she told him, straight-faced and with no signs of hysteria, that she didn’t believe it was Sherlock who’d hurt her in this unthinkable manner. That she didn’t want to contact the police, except maybe Greg Lestrade, because she knew they’d chalk her story up to denial and unwillingness to face the truth of what a man she’d trusted had done to her.

“It wasn’t him, John. It wasn’t Sherlock. It was Jim Moriarty. Somehow he’s come back from the dead and taken over Sherlock’s body. He’s the one who did this to me.” Her face turned pleading. “You have to believe me. It wasn’t just the way he sounded, but some of the things he said…he said things that no one else would know but the two of us. Things I never told Sherlock or anyone about. Things he couldn’t possibly deduce. It’s the only explanation that makes any sense. Please, tell me you believe me,” she finished up in a choked whisper, one hand reaching out as if to touch him before subsiding to her lap, where it twisted itself nervously around its mate.

“He’s been odd ever since he came down from the roof,” Molly pressed on when he remained silent, struggling with what she clearly believed was the truth – struggling to decide if it was a truth he could accept or was exactly what it appeared to be on the face of; a woman in denial about being attacked by a man she loved.

His best friend. The same man who’d willingly sacrificed two years of his life, faked his own death, just to keep his friends safe. And bring down a criminal empire, of course, but the original impetus had been entirely unselfish.

Sherlock could do – and had done – many, many questionable things since John had met him. He’d admitted to using drugs to try and slow the endless whirling of his mind; he’d actually drugged John himself in the Baskerville case. He’d shown himself to be perfectly willing to break the law when it suited him, and he had been known on more than one occasion to treat people with a rather callous contempt.

He’d also gone to that long-ago rooftop knowing that, even with thirteen possible scenarios in mind, it might all go to shit and he might actually die.

He’d also always denied the needs of his body to the point of asceticism, calling it transport for the only part that really counted: the mind.

A man like that might conceivably snap, but to do what had been done to Molly?

No. Not Sherlock. John simply couldn’t believe it of him. And if he was exhibiting the same denial as Molly, then so be it. He looked at her, holding her gaze as he said the three words she most needed to hear right now.

“I believe you.”

The only question was, what were they going to do about it?


	6. The Devil You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moriarty pays a visit to Mary Morstan, dealing some harsh emotional blows before leaving to do the same to Greg Lestrade.

The buzzer rang, and Mary sighed, dropping her fashion magazine down on the coffee table before hauling herself to her feet. “Who is it?” she called as she neared the front door to her flat. She wasn't expecting anyone but John, and he had his own key. She hadn't heard from him since he'd dashed off an hour earlier, but trusted him to text or call as soon as he could. She just hoped everything was...all...right...

She'd reached the door and finally heard an answer to her question, which literally stopped her in her tracks, both physically and mentally. “It's Sherlock, Mary. We need to talk.”

They needed...to talk. Mary felt her anger boiling over. After the hideous things he'd said about her at lunch, he had the nerve to show up on her doorstep and tell her they needed to _talk?!?_

She yanked the door open and glared up at him, unintimidated by either his height or the haughty expression on his face. “You think we need to talk, Mr. Holmes?” she snapped out at him. “I think you've already said everything I ever want to hear from you. Ever!”

He ignored both her angry words and her combative stance, stepping around her uninvited to enter the flat. She gaped at him – the _gall_ of that man, the sheer arrogance of assuming she would ever want him in her flat after the things he'd said!!

Still, she shut the door and folded her arms tightly across her chest, some small, curious (and no doubt masochistic) part of her wondering what exactly he'd come here to say. Would he offer her an apology, an excuse, or try to justify himself in some way? 

She should have known he'd do none of those things. Not after that contemptuous display at lunch, where he'd thrown her former marriage in her face (“She failed at it once, John, what makes you think she'll do better at it a second time, especially with someone who's waited until he reached his 40s to finally settle down?”) along with her inability to bear children (“Do you really want a barren wife, John? She has told you that about herself, hasn't she?”) and assorted lesser failings.

It hadn't made the hurt any less, knowing that none of this was news to John, but to hear such vitriol from a man her future husband (and he was going to be her future husband, she was determined on that) considered his best and closest friend – that had been something of a shock. Yes, she'd been braced for Sherlock to not like her, to say things that would make her uncomfortable, but she hadn't expected the man to apparently outright hate her.

“So, you're here,” she said after a long moment passed in silence, with Sherlock simply standing in front of her sofa and scowling at her, arms crossed just as defensively as hers. “What do you want to talk about? How you're a jealous git who can't stand the idea of anyone taking John away from you?”

She'd meant that sarcastically, but stiffened when Sherlock's glower darkened, his eyes narrowed and his arms dropped to his sides, hands clenched in fists. He took two steps forward, three, until suddenly he was right in front of her, and where she hadn't been afraid before, suddenly she was. There was such an air of coiled, barely restrained violence about him, that she actually wondered if he was about to hit her.

As soon as he started speaking, she discovered she would have preferred physical blows to the emotional ones he rained down on her, one after the other, eating away at her (she'd believed) carefully hidden insecurities as to the true nature of his and John's relationship before Sherlock had faked his death. Before she'd met John and fallen in love with him.

Sherlock, it appeared, had done so first. “You think you can make him happy?” he snarled, his glare deadly enough to kill. “Yes, you helped him through a difficult period of his life, but I'm back now, Miss Morstan, and it won't be long before John gives you the speech. The one you've been subconsciously bracing yourself for ever since I returned. The 'it isn't you, it's me' speech. The 'I love you but I'm not in love with you' speech. The 'you can't possibly understand what he means to me' speech.”

His sneer deepened with every word, and Mary found herself flinching a bit as he continued to invade her personal space until suddenly she realized she'd back up against the door with her hands pressed against it. “You do know that John and I were lovers before I was forced to sacrifice myself to save him, don't you? Oh, it took a while for him to get past the whole 'gay' thing, which is no doubt why he immediately turned to the first woman who would have him after he thought I died, but while we were together he lost every single inhibition he'd ever had.” 

Mary felt as if she couldn't breathe, as if the words spewing from Sherlock's mouth were stealing the breath from her. She opened her mouth to try and say something, although her mind was a complete blank, but Sherlock wouldn't stop, just kept going. “He let me suck him off, he fucked me and let me fuck him. I know him intimately, Miss Morstan, in ways you never will. I know what he likes, how to make him moan and scream. I've heard him calling out my name, begging for me to fuck him harder, tasted his cum and swallowed it down – but you don't do that, do you?” His voice lowered to a husky whisper as his lips turned up in a triumphant, malicious grin. “Good Catholic girls don't swallow, do they, Miss Morstan?”

She didn't know she was going to slap him until her hand was in the air. However, he was faster, reaching out to grab her wrist in a crushing hold before her hand could connect with his cheek. “Oh, no, Miss Morstan,” he growled. “I let John hit me because he matters to me, whereas you mean,” he leaned his head down so that his lips practically grazed her ear, “absolutely _nothing_ to me. And even though he's denying it at the moment, John feels exactly the same way.”

Then he pulled back, yanking her away from the door by the grip he'd maintained on her wrist. He only released her after he'd pulled the door open. Giving her one last, contemptuous sneer, he strode out of the door, leaving Mary gaping after him, stunned and, after a few minutes, weeping angry, hurt tears.

Not only because Sherlock had spewed out such venom to her...but because deep down, in her most secret self, she'd always been afraid that she'd just been fooling herself. That John would leave her for Sherlock, that he loved the other man more than he loved her.

oOo

Lestrade was next on his list, but Jim wasn't entirely sure he'd make it to the Detective Inspector's house before John came after him. By now Molly had no doubt shared her tearful story with him, tried to convince him that Sherlock was possessed – and been hustled off to a trauma center, where John would urge her to seek counseling as soon as possible, to help her cope with what had happened to her at the hands of a man she trusted. And no doubt the police would be after him as well, as an accused rapist. It was a gamble, going to Lestrade's house, but since he wasn't generally called in for sex crimes, it was a gamble Moriarty was willing to take.

His triumphant smirk turned to a snarl as he felt Sherlock howling his anger from deep inside the mental prison to which he'd been confined. Why couldn't he just accept his defeat gracefully? Just because he'd managed to temporarily best the great Jim Moriarty once didn't mean he'd ever manage to do it again! “Sorry, Sherly, but there's really nothing you can do about it,” he murmured as he strode down the pavement, eyes scanning the street for a taxi. He had no intentions of either legging it or taking the Tube to Lestrade's house.

The grin reappeared as he went over his plans for the Detective Inspector, giving his prisoner a peek before slamming the lid down on his thoughts, isolating Sherlock from all outside stimulus. He needed to focus, not let the other man distract him from the plan. No, it was time to make a confession to DI Greg Lestrade, to have 'Sherlock Holmes' admit to fucking his friend's wife behind his back. “Sorry, Lestrade, I know I should have told you this a long time ago...yes, that sounds smug and regretful at the same time,” Moriarty muttered to himself, rubbing his hands together gleefully.

Well. Not _his_ hands, not entirely – and not for more than a day or two more. He looked down at Sherlock's hands, so much longer and, he could admit it, more elegant than his own had been. Paler, too, but looking quite lethal encased in those black leather gloves he favored.

He pictured those gloved hands wrapped around the throat of Sally Donovan, the woman who'd 'betrayed' Sherlock, ruined his life and forced him into a two-year exile, all because she was so easily lead into believing exactly what he, Jim Moriarty, had wanted her to believe.

“You'll like that part of the plan, Sherlock,” he whispered to himself, then whistled and waved his hand as a taxi finally cruised by. _That'll be the last bit, killing that bitch. Everyone will believe you did it because she accused you of being the kidnapper of those two brats. They'll call it payback or revenge, but either way, Sally Donovan will be D-E-A-D dead. And after that, well, we won't actually need to do anything further to John or your landlady, will we? They'll believe that you went completely bonkers, lost your mind, and killed yourself for real. John will be a mess, don't you think? Drowning in guilt and anger...I wonder how long it'll take him to off himself, hm? Too bad you'll already be dead by the time he does!_

Silence echoed through his mind as the cab pulled up beside him, and Moriarty frowned; he disliked Sherlock not responding when given permission to do so almost more than he disliked Sherlock managing a reaction on his own. He got into the cab, absently gave the driver the directions to Lestrade's residence, then sank back in the seat, eyes closed, as he hunted down Sherlock's essence, enraged that the other man sought to hide from him. _What the hell do you think you're doing, Sherlock?_

No response. He started to growl with frustration, remembering at the last moment that it wasn't time for others to see the supposed cracks in the great detective’s facade. Not yet. Not until he'd had his fun with Lestrade – who was probably going to punch him much harder than John had after lunch – and squeezed the life out of Sally Donovan and made a threatening phone call to that idiot, Anderson. After that, yes, it would be perfectly wonderful for as many people as possible to witness Sherlock's 'breakdown', and of course he wanted an audience for the final act. 

This time, no fake outs, no pliable, pathetic pathologist to help him. Sherlock's reputation would be smashed to pieces, the man would be dead, and no one would be willing or able to believe in him. Not this time.

“Time to burn a few more bridges,” he whispered, frowning again when there was still no answer, not so much as the hint of an emotional reaction from his prisoner. Where the hell had he hidden himself away, and how had he learned to do so? None of Moriarty's other victims had been able to so much as blink without him letting them do it, but then, none of his other victims had been Sherlock Holmes. 

His frown vanished, replaced by a gleeful smile. He very nearly laughed out loud; he was actually quite pleased that Sherlock was making things more difficult for him. _The game is on,_ he thought, directing the words throughout the mind he'd usurped, knowing that, even if Sherlock wasn't reacting or allowing his reactions to be felt, he was still hearing everything Jim wanted him to. 

After all, it wasn't as if Sherlock could leave the prison of his own mind.

Could he?

A tendril of doubt curled through his mind as he tightened his focus, searching for any sign of Sherlock Holmes. If the man had somehow found a way to remove himself from the prison of her own mind – and body – then Moriarty needed to know. Cursing silently to himself, he continued the hunt while the oblivious cabbie drove on.


	7. Battlestations

_He was in his mind palace, the part that he rarely visited and was most likely to be overlooked by Moriarty, no matter how hard he searched. A secret room in the attic, hidden behind discarded furniture and shrouded in cobwebs._

_The memories of his early childhood. Nothing that usually interested him...and would certainly never interest Moriarty. Nothing useful here, nothing that could be used against him – because no matter what others might speculate, Sherlock Holmes had actually had a rather ordinary childhood, had been raised by equally ordinary parents, put up with an obnoxious older brother, neither of them realizing at first how extraordinarily different they were from other children._

_The memories after that knowledge had been thrust upon the Holmes brothers were kept rigorously separate from those that had come before. A clear demarcation, of the combined bliss of ignorance and innocence, until the discovery of difference had been made._

_No, Moriarty would not even notice this mental hidey-hole. He might circle around it, but he would never be able to breach the quiet defenses that had long been erected. Oh, Sherlock could feel him, hear him, howling around the perimeter as he fruitlessly sought his prisoner, but like a vampire in an old movie, he couldn't enter unless he was invited in. And Sherlock Holmes had absolutely no intention of allowing his captor access to any more of his mind than he'd already plundered, now that he understood how to erect the proper defenses around his deepest sense of self._

_He ignored Moriarty's frantic search, narrowing his own focus on what he'd learned about the supernatural entity that had taken over his body, then used it to do and say such horrific things to the people Sherlock cared about._

_He very carefully refused to acknowledge how sickened he'd been when Moriarty used his body to rape Molly Hooper. The verbal damage the madman had inflicted on John and Mary was bad, very bad, but it was all lies and lies could be refuted. What Moriarty had done to Molly, however...that could not be refuted, ignored, or deleted._

_It could, however, be temporarily put aside, compartmentalized. He could not dwell on the sick horror he'd felt as he'd been forced to watch, helpless to stop it, any of it. He couldn't stop Moriarty from using his hands to choke Molly into unconsciousness, to strip of his own clothing and hers. Couldn't stop him from using Sherlock's mouth to orally stimulate Molly, or from driving himself into her before she fully returned to consciousness..._

_With a snarl of rage, Sherlock slammed the lid down on the memories before they had the chance to overwhelm him. He needed to focus, dammit, to find a way out of the trap his own mind and body had become, to find a way to stop Moriarty from doing any more damage – and to get him the hell out._

_More than that, he had to be stopped from ever doing something like this to anyone else._

_With that goal firmly in mind, Sherlock reviewed everything he’d learned since Moriarty had taken control of his body. The supernatural entity – ghost, spirit, what have you – had access to Sherlock’s memories and the ability to use them against him…up to a point. The limitations, however, appeared to have more to do with Sherlock’s ability to control his own thoughts rather than any lack of ability on Moriarty’s part. The key word, of course, being ‘appeared’. If that hypothesis proved incorrect in the future, then it would be discarded. However, for now its validity was holding true, as Moriarty seemed unable to either locate Sherlock’s hiding place, or even to recognize its existence in the first place. Good._

_Moriarty couldn’t control Sherlock’s thoughts, only his body. He could share his own thoughts with his prisoner, although Sherlock held no illusions that Moriarty had opened his mind to him completely. No, he limited that sense of mental sharing to only what he wanted Sherlock to know; logic alone told him that._

_Logic also told him that there was a time limit on Moriarty's possession of his body, else the madman wouldn't have been moving at such a breakneck speed to destroy the relationships that Sherlock had established. No, he'd have moved with much more deliberation, savoring every victory, wringing as much satisfaction out of every move as he could, rather than ticking items off as if destroying Sherlock's life was a grocery list._

_Another fact, interesting and one Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure he was comfortable with: he’d been able to physically affect his own body, altering the color of his irises so that Molly had some sort of tangible, or at least visible, proof that it wasn’t Sherlock doing those hateful things to her. He’d seen her eyes widen in recognition of the impossible, and gambled that, taken in conjunction with the way Moriarty had deliberately used phrasing she seemed to recognize when he’d finished abusing her, should be enough for her to not simply take things at face value._

_The question was, what would Molly do with that information – what could any of them do with the knowledge that James Moriarty's spirit had possessed Sherlock Holmes's body?_

_With that question in mind, Sherlock Holmes settled himself to research every bit of knowledge he'd retained regarding paranormal activities._

_None of them, he swore, would go down without a fight._

oOo

“What do we do, then? How do we get rid of Moriarty?”

Molly had showered and dressed herself, borrowing one of Mrs. Hudson's blouses to replace the one 'Sherlock' had ruined. Fortunately he'd left the rest of her clothing intact, and although Molly had every intention of burning every last piece of it at some future point, for now practicality won out.

She’d flat-out refused to go to the police, to retain so much as a single shred of DNA evidence that would convict Sherlock of a crime she was utterly convinced he hadn’t committed. John had rather half-heartedly tried to convince her otherwise – “No matter who did it to you, Molly, you were still assaulted and you should still report it, else you might not get the type of help you might need” – but she’d remained firm. Yes, someday she would probably need counseling and in the next few days she would be very likely writing herself a prescription for the morning-after pill, but that was all in the future. She needed to focus on the now, on the situation as it was currently unfolding, and although John clearly didn’t agree with her 100% (nor did Mrs. Hudson, for that matter), he was allowing Molly to decide how she wished to handle things.

She was grateful for that, and for the way both he and Mrs. Hudson seemed to believe her, that Sherlock wasn’t himself when he attacked her, although she suspected the older woman of humoring her while secretly suspecting Sherlock of backsliding into drug use. But Molly knew what she’d seen, and the way his eyes had changed color was nothing like any sort of side-effect from any drug, legal or not, that Molly had ever heard of.

She knew what she’d heard as well, those chilling words still echoing through her mind as she restlessly paced Mrs. Hudson's sitting room. _There's a love, Molly. How could you doubt me after this?_

John stood with folded arms, gazing down at the floor wearing an abstracted frown, and Mrs. Hudson sat and fidgeted while Molly paced, her hands nervously twisting on her lap. Molly’s question hung in the air, unanswered, and she bit back a laugh, knowing how likely it was to devolve into an hysterical cackle if she didn't keep tight control of herself. “Mrs. Hudson, have you ever been to a séance, or had your palm read? Is it possible any of the mediums who have shows on the telly actually know anything about real paranormal activities? John, what do you think?”

John looked up at the sound of his name, and Molly repeated the question she'd just asked Mrs. Hudson. “Probably not,” was his pronouncement. “Seems to me anyone who had real abilities wouldn't want to advertise them, yeah? At least, I wouldn't,” he muttered, but there was something about the way he said it that caught Molly's attention.

“You know something, John,” she said, coming to a stop directly in front of him. “There's something...it wasn't just because you didn't believe Sherlock could do something like this that convinced you to believe me, was it?”

John turned away from her, reaching up to run his hands through his hair before lacing his fingers together on the back of his head and taking a few agitated paces of his own, away from Molly and then back again. “Harry,” he finally said, after what appeared to be a serious struggle with himself. 

Molly gazed at him blankly, then glanced over at Mrs. Hudson for help. The older woman looked almost as confused as Molly felt, but then she said, “What's your sister got to do with this, John?”

He folded his arms across his chest again and took the chair across from Mrs. Hudson's sofa. “Harry's ex, she was...well, Harry said some things about her, things I dismissed because, well, because of her drinking, to be frank,” he said after another long moment. Molly took a seat on the sofa, willing her nervous energy under control long enough to listen to what he was saying, because any lead, no matter how tenuous, needed to be followed. “Harry's ex, she was...interested in the occult. I found out after they'd broken up and my sister started drinking again, that that was why she did it, left her, I mean. Because she thought Clara had gone round the bend. Or at least,” he added bitterly, “that was her excuse that time. Any time any little bump in the road comes up, my sister takes it as an excuse to go back on the bottle.”

Any other time Molly would have immediately begun to commiserate; however, this time she needed John to stay focused and on topic, for the sake of her sanity and, more importantly, Sherlock's soul. If, of course, it was in danger, which she still wasn't entirely sure about. His body, on the other hand, and his mind...those were clearly in jeopardy.

Before John could say anything more, his mobile rang, a romantic pop tune that must be his ring tone for Mary. Molly wanted to protest, but John had been called away from Mary's flat to help her; the least she could do was let John reassure his girlfriend that everything was...well, not all right, of course, but not desperate. Nobody had died, after all.

At least, not yet.

“Mary? Yeah, honey...wait, slow down, _what_?!?” There was a long silence on John's end, and Molly felt her feet tapping as her nerves reminded her that they were far from settled. Mrs. Hudson put her hand on Molly's knee in a comforting gesture as they waited for John’s call to finish up. Clearly something was wrong, and Molly’s instincts were screaming at her that it was something to do with Sherlock – Moriarty, that is.

Those instincts were confirmed when John finally spoke, promising Mary that he knew what was happening and would take care of it, that she shouldn’t let what Sherlock had said to her bother her because none of it was true, and that he would explain everything just as soon as he’d gotten it sorted out. That led to another round of silence on his end while Mary once again spoke, then another set of promises and reassurances from John that he was working on it, that Sherlock wasn’t in his right mind and that he loved her, Mary, and would make sure that she received not only a full explanation as soon as he had one for her, but also an apology.

After he hung up the mobile he stood staring down at it for a moment before looking up to meet the concerned gazes of Molly and Mrs. Hudson. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair in an abstracted gesture before shoving the mobile into his pocket. “Sherlock’s been to see Mary,” he said, voice crackling with tension and restrained fury. “He said some…pretty awful things to her. Things I know Sherlock would never say because they’re straight up lies. Lies meant to hurt her and make her doubt me and…” He fell silent, drawing a deep, shuddering breath before letting it out in an explosive blast. “We have to stop him. We have to get Moriarty out of Sherlock’s body and make sure he can never do anything like this to anyone else. I’m going to call my sister and see if she has a current number for Clara.”

“Right, and Molly, let’s get on the laptop, shall we?” Mrs. Hudson proposed, standing up and gesturing toward her kitchen table. “Surely there must be something on that dreadful internet that can help us!”

Grateful for something to do, Molly nodded and followed the older woman as John left the flat, obviously so he could speak to his estranged sister in private.

Someone had to be able to help them, to save Sherlock from being further damaged by his unwanted supernatural invader. She refused to believe otherwise.


	8. The Space Between

Moriarty raged as he stormed through Sherlock's mind, searching for his erstwhile captive. How, how, HOW could he have hidden himself away so thoroughly? Every nook and cranny of that brain should be _his_ playground, with no corner unknown and no secret undiscovered.

So where the _hell_ was Sherlock, then?

He must have made some sort of noise, because the cab driver was glancing at him in the rearview mirror, face and voice both concerned as he asked, “You all right back there?”

“Fine,” Moriarty spat out, although no, he wasn't fine, he was the furthest thing from fine at the moment. This was wrong, this wasn't how it was supposed to go! _He_ was supposed to be in control, Sherlock was supposed to be dancing to _his_ tune, watching and raging helplessly while Moriarty dismantled his life, one precious friendship at a time.

They were nearly to Lestrade's suburban residence, and Moriarty found himself with an unpleasant choice; go on as planned, with the possibility that Sherlock might somehow have either fled his own body or was possibly working on a way to reveal himself at the most inopportune moment – or tell the cabbie to go to one of Jim's own boltholes, someplace safe where he could dedicate every ounce of his considerable mental energy to rooting Sherlock out of whatever obscure hiding place he'd found within his mind and force him back into the prison Moriarty had concocted for him.

Neither choice was appealing at the moment; yes, he could certainly do a great deal of damage to Sherlock's friendship with the DI, but if Sherlock managed to somehow sabotage it, give the idiot a reason to suspect something was wrong, then the game might be up before it could be concluded. And time, time was such a precious commodity; he could feel it ticking away, his awareness that no matter how he fought to retain his hold on Sherlock's mind, eventually – sooner rather than later – he would find himself cast out, once again trapped within the boundaries of St. Bart's no matter how far he managed to flee while occupying human form. 

“FUCK,” he snarled, not caring if the cabbie heard him or not. Well, of course the man heard him, he’d almost shouted the word. “Change of plans, take me back to London, I just remembered an appointment I can’t miss,” he snarled, giving out the address of one of his roomier boltholes and waving a wad of cash at the driver when he grumbled about people changing their minds. That shut the man up well enough, although it might also have been because of the less-than-sane expression on ‘Sherlock’s’ face as he sank back into the seat, fingers tapping anxiously (no, not anxiously, never anxiously, it was simply an excess of energy, that was all) on his thighs for the remainder of the ride.

oOo

It took three phone calls for John to convince his sister – who was apparently deep in the depths of a massive ‘poor me pity me’ tear – to surrender Clara’s mobile number. Apparently when the two split up Clara had told Harry it was all right to call her any time, for any reason, and John wondered wearily if his sister even understood how important that was. Did she not get how much Clara loved her, how much it had hurt her to break up with her when Harry couldn’t control her drinking?

He doubted it. Harry could be spectacularly self-involved even sober. 

Still, his sister wasn’t the issue at hand, Sherlock was, and although he hesitated before dialing the number Harry had mumbled at the conclusion of their third conversation – he’d made her repeat it twice to make sure he understood her through the sniffles and occasional sobs he forced himself to ignore, knowing them for the ploys for pity that they were – he did it. Maybe Clara could help, maybe she couldn’t, but it was at least a starting point, something to do besides wait to see what other horrible things Jim Moriarty planned to do while pretending to be Sherlock Holmes.

Of course John had attempted to ring him up, but the calls had gone immediately to voice mail, which meant either the battery was dead (Sherlock _never_ let the battery go dead, ever, it was the one mundane chore he never neglected) or Moriarty had switched it off. Molly had disagreed violently when John tentatively suggested contacting Mycroft or Lestrade, for pretty much the same reason. “Mycroft will just call it a ‘danger night’ and round him up for rehab, and Greg will have someone search his flat for drugs; you know neither one of them will believe us, John,” she’d said, voice trembling and fingers nervously playing with the lower buttons on the frilly blouse Mrs. Hudson had lent her. “It’ll take too long, John, trying to convince them of something you know they won’t believe.”

He’d been forced to agree with her; neither man seemed the type to hold any sort of belief in the supernatural. Hell, he himself wasn’t the kind, but the evidence Molly had presented him, the things Sherlock had said and done today…it really was the only explanation that made sense. On the other hand, he knew Molly was right, that others wouldn’t necessarily see it that way.

So here he was, dialing his former sister-in-law at eight o’clock at night, hoping she would be willing to talk to him and be able to help them figure this out.

Voice mail. Damn. He hesitated before leaving a message, asking her to call him back and telling her it was urgent but had nothing to do with Harry. He saw the disappointment in Molly’s face and did his best to reassure her that Clara was very good about returning calls…and hoped he was right. He hadn’t had any reason to contact the woman since her and Harry’s breakup nearly four years ago, and just hoped she would willing to help after all this time.

If, of course, her interest in the occult hadn’t just been some passing fad she’d long since left behind – and had been serious enough in the first place to merit his disturbing her after all this time with a matter any sane person would dismiss as the delusions of people desperate to excuse their friend’s inexplicable behavior.

A half hour later two things happened: Mary showed up, looking wan and nervous, and his mobile rang.


	9. Having Words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary and Moriarty have a chat, with some commentary by John and Molly.

Faced with a dilemma – answer the damned phone or pull Mary into his arms for a comforting hug – John managed to do both. He held the mobile to his ear and said, “Hello?” while placing his free arm around Mary’s shoulders, holding her close and pressing a quick kiss to her temple as he listened to the voice on the other end of the phone. Mary’s presence meant he hadn’t bothered to see who it was.

“Did you miss me?”

John froze, his arm unconsciously tightening around Mary’s shoulder. Something in his face, or the stillness of his body, alerted the others; Molly and Mrs. Hudson both rose to their feet and hurried to stand in front of him. With a trembling thumb, John pressed the button to put the call on speaker, then held the mobile away from his face. “Sherlock?”

The sound of Sherlock’s rumbling chuckle filled the room, raising in pitch until it was a shrill giggle before ending abruptly. “Oh, John, honey, we both know it’s not Sherlock. He gave things away, didn’t he Miss Molly, hmm? Did something so you could put two and two together and come up with the right answer for once? And I played right into his hands by saying what I did. Didn’t I. DIDN’T I!”

The last words were shouted, and both Molly and Mrs. Hudson flinched a bit at the sound. Then Molly squared her shoulders and took a step closer, speaking directly into the phone as she said, “Yes, Jim, you did. If you hadn’t said anything I would have gone on believing the lie, even with what I saw.”

“Yes, the trick with the eyes, he doesn’t seem to have full control over it, I caught a glimpse in the mirror and put two and two together. I suppose I should give him credit for being so fucking clever.” The voice was sullen now, and John could clearly picture Sherlock’s trademark pout superimposed on Moriarty’s face. “It explains why there was nothing on the police scanners about Sherlock Holmes being wanted for questioning. Oh well, now that the cat’s out of the bag I guess I’ll have to skip the rest of the preliminaries and go straight to the end game.”

“Which is what, exactly?” John asked, although he had a sinking suspicion he knew exactly what said ‘end game’ was going to be.

The sound of a long, drawn-out sigh came dramatically from the mobile’s speaker. “Oh, the usual; death, destruction, jumping from a roof…only this time without anyone helping, isn’t that right, Molly? Hmm? You won’t be able to stop me this time, won’t be able to keep your precious Sherlock from offing himself for real. I imagine you’ll just cry and cry when you find his body, all of you will. Which is fine, not what I wanted when I started this, true, but plans have to be flexible or they’re no good at all.”

“Jim, please, don’t do this,” Molly said, her brown eyes enormous against the paleness of her face. “Please, just…just let him go, you’ve had your fun, hurt us all in your own way, but what will it accomplish if you kill him? You’ll still be dead, still a ghost; there still won’t be any way for us to stop you from doing whatever you want. So why kill Sherlock, why not just let him go so you can laugh at him, laugh at us all as we try and fail to get rid of you?”

John’s admiration for Molly rose several notches; it wouldn’t have occurred to him to beg for Sherlock’s life like this, by appealing to Jim’s ego rather than his non-existent mercy. However, when Molly went on to add, “Please, let him go, let him live, take me instead if you feel like you have to kill someone…” John knew it was time to step in.

“Moriarty,” he barked silencing Molly with a stern look. “What Molly says is true; it’ll be much more satisfying, won’t it, if Sherlock is alive to keep playing your sick games? If you have him around to try and figure out who you’ve possessed or what mischief you’re up to, to always be two steps behind you, rather than a corpse who can’t do anything more to amuse you?”

There was silence from the other end of the phone, for so long that John began to worry that Moriarty was no longer listening, that he’d simply left the mobile sitting somewhere while he took his stolen body up to a tall building and flung himself off it. The sight was one all-too-easily conjured in John’s mind; the memory of watching Sherlock do just that a little over two years ago would stay with him forever, no matter that it had been as fake as anything in a movie.

Finally, he heard Sherlock’s voice, sounding almost normal. Almost as if it were actually him speaking and not an impossible specter from beyond the grave. John spared a second to wonder if Mary was in shock, she’d been so quiet since arriving, but then Moriarty’s words caught his attention. “You present a compelling argument, the two of you. To kill or not to kill? That is the question. And if I do kill, kill whom? Sweet Sherlock, who cheated me of my victory, or Mousy Molly, who offered herself up to me in his stead? She’s so fucking noble, isn’t she? Always putting Sherlock’s needs ahead of her own…well, except earlier,” he added, his voice turning sly and filled with malevolence. “Sherlock wanted to fuck her and she tried to tell him no, which is soooo ironic, isn’t it? Since it’s the only thing she’s wanted from him ever since she first laid eyes on him…”

“You’re stalling for time. Why?”

John gaped at Mary, who had suddenly pulled herself out of his hold and snatched the phone from his hand. She was still the same Mary, the woman he’d fallen in love with and wanted to marry, but there was something different about her; the way she held herself, the expression of tightly controlled fury on her face…what the _hell_ was going on??

“Come on, Jim, you can’t have too much time left inside that stolen body; another day at most, yeah? So why are you stalling for time? What’s the matter, can’t find Sherlock? Hiding from you, is he?”

Silence greeted her jeering comment, on both sides of the mobile. Molly and Mrs. Hudson were openly gaping at Mary while John could do nothing but wait to see what Moriarty would have to say – and when this phone call was over, if there was time, he and his fiancée were going to have a very pointed discussion. “Well, well, well, Mary puts in her two cents,” Moriarty finally sneered. “Didn’t think I’d be hearing from you so soon, after I left you speechless back at your tacky little flat. Did you tell John, yet, all the secrets I revealed, hmm?”

“Lies, you mean,” Mary replied, her voice holding steady, although John could see a bit of a quiver to her lips as she spoke. If the bastard wasn’t already dead, John would gladly kill him twice over for what he'd done to Molly and Mary today.

“Oh, they weren’t all lies,” came Sherlock’s taunting voice in a chilling, familiar sing-song. “Come on, Mary, we both know that. The best lies are mixed in with the truth.”

“You’re still stalling,” Mary said flatly. “You can’t find Sherlock inside his mind, he’s hidden himself away from you somehow and it’s driving you spare. You want to kill him, but you can’t do it unless you know for certain he’s aware of what you’re doing, so you can feel his despair and anger and whatever negative emotions you need to feed off of. So you’re trying to drive him out again by calling John. You were hoping, what, that the sound of John’s voice would cause him to forget himself, to come out of hiding or reveal where that hiding place is? Well I’ve got news for you, Jim Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes is a lot smarter than you give him credit for, and if he’s got half the brains I think he has, he’ll stay exactly where he is and not…”

Mary fell silent as the mobile went dead. She sighed and handed the phone back to John. “Well, shit,” she said glumly. “I guess he didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I just hope I got through to Sherlock…” She fell silent again as she caught the expression on John’s face, and realized that Molly and Mrs. Hudson were staring at her with equal curiosity and concern. “Oh, I guess you want to know how I figured out it wasn’t Sherlock, that he was possessed, huh.”

John nodded. “Yeah, that would be good,” he agreed, leaving his arm around her as he pocketed the mobile. “I got the impression when he fed you all those lies before, that you thought it was Sherlock?”

Mary nodded. "Yes, at the time I believed it was Sherlock talking to me, being an utter berk just like he was at lunch. It wasn’t until you put him on speaker and I heard his voice through the mobile – oh, come on, you all must have noticed it, yeah?” she broke off to ask, glancing questioningly at the others. “The sort of echoey quality of his voice, how it almost sounded like two people talking at the same time, slightly out of sync? No?”

“Even if we did,” Molly said, “how was that a clue to anything other than a faulty connection?”

Mary glanced at the sofa. “I think we might want to get comfortable,” she said. “Because, well, it’s kind of a long story…and honestly, not one I ever thought I’d share with anyone.” She caressed John’s face. “Not even you, love, but only because I didn’t think you’d believe me.”

John captured her hand in his and planted a soft kiss on her palm. “Whatever it is, it can’t be as bad as my best friend being possessed by an evil spirit,” he replied with a wry twist of the lips. They all sat down, Mrs. Hudson on her chair, Mary between Molly and John on the cheerful chintz sofa. John kept a tight hold of Mary’s hand as she began to speak.


	10. Mary, Mary, Quite Extraordinary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mary's secret past is revealed.

“Look, before I explain my past, I just want to ask what you know about the supernatural? I mean the real stuff, not the rubbish on telly or in the movies,” Mary began. “I’m assuming not much?

“Not even that it was real,” Molly admitted quietly. “Until this happened.”

Mary reached out as if to lay a consoling hand on the other woman’s knee, but hesitated. She could see the circle of bruises around Molly’s throat and recognized the signs of strangulation, but had no idea if the intent had been restraint or if the possessed Sherlock Holmes had actually attempted to kill her. Not that it mattered, she supposed, but the instinct to help and protect had always been a part of her, no matter what career she pursued.

Molly obviously noticed where Mary’s attention had gone, but instead of attempting to cover herself up or cringing away, she looked her in the eye and said simply, “He raped me. Choked me enough to knock me out first, then raped me.” She explained about the way Sherlock’s eyes had changed color and added Jim’s words, the ones that had clued her in that all was definitely not what it appeared.

“I hope, when this is all over,” Mary said, “that you can find some way to forgive him. Sherlock, I mean, not Jim.” Her eyes narrowed. “That evil bastard has to be taken care of. Permanently.”

“Agreed.” Molly’s voice was firm, determined, and her eyes radiated a quiet resolve that Mary both admired and recognized. “And for the record, I don’t. Blame Sherlock, I mean. And I’ll let him know that as soon as…once this is all over with. Because I assume he’s aware of everything that’s going on, right? You made it sound like he could, and if he was somehow responsible for the eye-color thing, then that means he’s not just unconscious inside his own mind.”

Mary nodded and glanced at the others. Mrs. Hudson, who hadn’t spoken a word since the phone call, sat looking quite calm and composed, but the tension was clear in the way her hands were clasped so tightly together her knuckles were white. John was even easier to read; he was dying to know what Mary had to tell them, both because he wanted to help his friend and because he wanted to know what secrets his fiancée had been keeping from him.

Secrets she was just as eager to share with him, now that she knew he would believe her. “Yeah, Sherlock is aware of everything Moriarty has made his body do, unfortunately.” Her eyes were sympathetic as she explained. “OK, since time is of the essence, I’ll give you the short version, details to be filled in once we’ve taken care of this ghost problem. Ghosts and demons exist. Legends about vampires and werewolves are based on demon sightings, since a lot of demons have those characteristics – shape changing, affinity for the full moon, aversion to garlic and sunlight, fangs, you get the picture.”

She glanced at the others in turn, waiting for their confirming nods – Mrs. Hudson’s offered with a bit of a shake and her hand held firmly over her mouth – before continuing with her personal history. She turned to look directly at John as she spoke. “There are people who’ve developed…special skills…to deal with these supernatural entities. Since demons are physical beings, demon hunters are faster and stronger than average humans, and have created special weapons to use against them – firearms are entirely ineffectual so they tend to be swords, knives, that sort of thing. There are a lot less demons manifesting since the early 20th century, thank God, so I’ve never actually run into either a demon or a demon hunter, just heard stories from other contacts. I come from a long line of ghost hunters, all on the female line for some reason no one can explain.” She shrugged. “It just happens that way. Some families it’s all the males, some it skips generations, some it’s a mixture of sexes and abilities.”

“What kind of abilities?” John asked, fascinated and just the tiniest bit turned on. He’d always known Mary was special, but to hear her saying so plainly that she came from a family with a history of dealing with the supernatural he’d only recently come to believe in only added to her allure. She’d always been reticent about her past, but he’d assumed it was because she was an orphan, with no remaining family and only a small circle of friends. Not too different from him, now that he thought about it, although regrettably the only family legacy he had to offer was one of occasional alcohol abuse and much more frequently, military service, as evidenced by himself and his unfortunate sister.

“For ghost hunters, there are basically three types of abilities,” Mary replied, with a flicker of a smile on her lips as he reached out and took her hand firmly in his. She squeezed it, and he knew she was silently thanking him for understanding her need to keep this secret, for taking it all in stride. Later, when everything had been sorted, the two of them were going to have a nice long chat about what it might mean for their future together, but that was for later. “My mother was a Sensitive, could sense ghosts and demons, and my Aunt Joan, her sister, was a Medium, who could communicate with the dead when they’re on our plane of existence, the way Moriarty is now. Me, I’m an Excommunicator. I can pull a spirit or demon out of someone’s body. Some people have a combination of these abilities, rarest of all being the ones who combine all three. I’ve never met anyone who has more than one or two, personally.” She let out her breath in a whoosh, peering anxiously at the other three, trying to gauge their reactions. 

“That’s…amazing,” Molly said, and she sounded and looked like she meant it. “I’m just glad there are actually people out there who know how to deal with this sort of thing…and that there’s a way to get Moriarty out of Sherlock’s body.” She looked at Mary hopefully. “So what do you have to do, track him down somehow?”

Mary’s expression darkened. “I wish I could,” she replied sadly. “But that’s the job of a Sensitive. Unfortunately, after my family was killed – car crash, nothing supernatural, just bloody awful for me at the time – I fell out of touch with anyone else in the know. They were all my parents’ generation and I was eighteen and didn’t think I needed them.” She gave a bitter headshake. “The best I can do is try to reach out to any of them that are still around.”

“Everyone has a website these days,” Mrs. Hudson declared, rising to her feet. “I’ll just fetch my laptop and you can put in some names and we’ll see what we find, right? Oh, and I’ll put the kettle on, I think tea is definitely called for.” She pattered off to the kitchen while Mary stared after her, amazed at the equanimity with which the older woman was reacting to all this.

“She once ran a drug cartel,” John said in answer to the question in Mary’s eyes when she turned to look at him. He shrugged. “Or so Sherlock says.”

“My husband ran it, I just did the typing!” Mrs. Hudson called from the kitchen, proving that her hearing was as good as it had ever been.

Mary grinned at the byplay while Molly gnawed at her thumbnail before asking a question of her own. “John, do you think it’s still worth it to call Clara?

Mary’s ears perked up at the sound of a familiar name. “Clara? Clara Simcoe?” she asked.

John nodded, surprised that Mary knew Clara’s name…but then again, maybe it was a good sign, considering the bizarre nature of their current conversation. “Yeah, Harry’s ex, they’ve been broken up for years now which I why I never mentioned her.” His voice turned eager. “Why, do you know her?”

Mary shook her head. “No, but I know of her,” she replied. “She may be just the person we need to help us get rid of Moriarty once and for all. She’s supposedly a very powerful Sensitive and Medium, although since Moriarty is already possessing Sherlock, we won’t need that particular ability. You have her number, you were going to ring her?”

“Yeah, Harry gave it to me. Haven’t tried it yet, but if you think she could help…” He fell silent as he pulled his mobile out and entered the number his sister had given him. Mary, Molly and Mrs. Hudson waited quietly, and he knew all of them were hoping for the same thing: that the number was current, that Clara would be willing to help them, and that this nightmare could finally be over.

Two minutes later he had her on the phone, to his faint surprise; he’d half-expected Harry to have gotten the number wrong, or for it to have been cancelled. He spoke to her for a moment, the usual awkward pleasantries exchanged before John got to the reason for the call. “Clara, Harry said you were involved in the occult, that you broke up because of it. Is that true?”

“Look, John, I’m not interested in hearing your opinions of my interests,” Clara began, but John interrupted her.

“And I’m not interested in giving you my opinion. I’m interested in freeing a friend of mine who’s been fucking possessed by a ghost or an evil spirit or whatever you want to call it, and I’m hoping you can help me with that.”

John heard Clara give out a gasp of shock. “Oh, John, that’s…I’m sorry, I’m just used to people making fun of me or questioning my mental health, that I just assumed…are you sure this friend of yours has been possessed? Tell me everything you know, why you think it’s something supernatural rather than drugs or insanity or any of the logical, scientific reasons. I can promise I’ll listen with an open mind.”

“Actually,” John replied with a faint grin, “why don’t I let my girlfriend explain, since she’s the one in the business, as it were?” He handed the phone to Mary, still grinning, feeling an insane sense of relief. The danger was far from over, for Sherlock or anyone else Moriarty might seek to possess or do harm to, but getting the help of not one but two people with a history of dealing with the supernatural was a huge relief.

He listened with half an ear as Mary explained things to Clara, seeing a blush creep over her cheeks when Clara obviously recognized her family name. Even though there was going to be less-literal hell to pay when Harry sobered up enough to remember that John had sought out her ex didn’t dampen his spirits (hah! Good choice of words, there) one bit. They would get Moriarty out of Sherlock and destroy him or send him to hell or whatever happened when Mary Excommunicated him.

After that, he intended to take his ghost-hunter-girlfriend home, shag her silly, and propose, in that order. To hell with quizzing her on her past; he’d known she was the one not long after he’d met her, and this insane history of hers only made her more desirable in his eyes.

If that made him crazy, so be it. After all, his best friend was a self-proclaimed high functioning sociopath with a history of drug use, his landlady’s ex-husband ran a drug cartel, and even Molly wasn’t exactly what you could call normal...

His high spirits dampened a bit as he peered over at the pathologist, who had curled up in one corner of the sofa, sipping at a cup of a tea and gazing blankly at nothing. In his euphoria at finding a solution to their current problem, he’d almost forgotten the damage that Moriarty had already done. The words he’d flung at Mary, the sneering commentary on her and John’s relationship…that sort of damage was transitory at best, especially since the hateful words hadn’t been Sherlock’s. But what Moriarty had done to Molly…even if she said she didn’t hate Sherlock for it, it was the sort of thing that couldn’t help but taint their friendship. 

John sighed softly and rubbed his forehead. God, he wished this was over, far behind them all, or better yet, that it had never happened. Life had been a lot less complicated yesterday. Then he straightened up and took a healthy gulp of his own tea. Fretting over things wouldn’t do any good, he knew that. Deal with what’s in front of you until it’s done, then deal with whatever came next. That was how he’d always handled life and damned if he was going to stop now just because ghosts (and demons, God, he didn’t even want to _think_ about that) were real.

He’d been so lost in his own thoughts that Mary had to nudge him twice to bring him back to reality. He blinked and looked at her as she handed him his mobile. “She’s on her way,” she said. “Once she has a taste of his aura – which should be all over the flat,” she added, tilting her head to indicate 221B, “she’ll be able to track him down no matter where he’s gone to ground. Then we’ll get your friend back…and I’ll finally be able to properly meet him,” she added with a faint grin.

John grinned back wryly. “Don’t think he won’t be just as awful,” he warned her, keeping his tone light. “Sherlock can be a bit of a berk even when he’s not possessed.”

“I just want him _back_.” Molly’s voice cracked a bit on the last syllable, and Mrs. Hudson hurried to her side to take her in her arms for a motherly embrace as the younger woman finally broke down into the sobs she’d been fighting.

John and Mary held one another’s hands while Mrs. Hudson did her best to calm Molly. Moriarty couldn’t be Excommunicated fast enough, and that was the truth.


	11. Brainstorming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I really wanted to call this chapter "Clarification" but I thought the pun wasn't really suited to the tone of the story)

Clara arrived an hour later; she’d moved back to London after she and Harry had divorced, although she hadn’t kept in touch with John at all. Not out of dislike, but out of respect for her ex, who would accuse them of ganging up on her or of taking sides against her. Harry’s personal demons weren’t the literal type, which in some of her more despairing moments Clara rather wished they were; at least then all it would take to get rid of them would be a demon hunter with the proper dagger or sword. 

As soon as the front door to 221 Baker Street opened, she put all concerns about her ex-wife aside, focusing entirely on her former brother-in-law. John looked gaunt, drained, and she could understand why; discovering the existence of the supernatural in this manner was bound to take its toll.

She’d heard about his being invalided from the army, of course, and once he’d started blogging about his adventures as Sherlock Holmes’ flatmate and friend she’d been sure to follow that as well. More than once she’d thought about reaching out to him, but then Harry’s no doubt poor reaction to any such communication had come to mind, and she’d gone on with her life without making that move.

Now, however, there was no choice in the matter; she pulled John to her for a quick hug and a peck on the cheek, then stepped aside and let him shut the door. He ushered her into the downstairs flat and introduced her to everyone: his landlady, Mrs. Hudson, a lovely older woman who looked a bit pale but resolute; his fiancée Mary Morstan of the Colchester Morstans, whom she was very glad to meet; and finally a young woman named Molly Hooper, who bore the visible bruising of a victim of violence of some kind. Presumably administered by the spirit currently possessing Sherlock Holmes.

John explained everything, leaving nothing out that she could sense; her ability to tell when someone was holding back was well honed through years of experience. She might only be 45 years old, but she’d been trained from a young age in dealing with the supernatural and its victims, and she was impressed by the level of truth she was receiving from these people. 

Mrs. Hudson was the only one who hadn’t been attacked in any way by the spirit, but in spite of only having second-hand evidence at best, she was still as firm a believer as the others. Good; any skepticism would make things that much harder. She needed these people to be prepared to do whatever she asked of them, promptly and without question, no matter what.

Because finding Sherlock and removing his unwanted tenant was going to be the easy part; getting rid of the spirit entirely was going to be a bit more difficult.

“Mary, when was the last time you excommunicated a spirit?”

The blonde looked unhappy at the question, but answered it willingly enough. “I haven’t done this since…well, since I was 18,” she confessed. “And never on my own. And before you ask, no, I don’t have any of my parents’ spirit vessels; they were destroyed in the car accident that killed them. We were moving,” she explained as she looked at the others. John was holding her hand and never let his eyes move from hers; Clara smiled faintly to herself, pleased that he’d found someone to share his life with after so many years on his own. “They didn’t want to trust the vessels to the van, didn’t want anyone handling them but themselves. It was a drunk driver; he crossed into oncoming traffic. They were killed instantly and the car was totaled. The vessels shattered and I never bothered to find anyone to help me craft new ones.”

She sounded guilty, and Clara started to reassure her that it was all right, she understood, when John beat her to it. “Stop blaming yourself, Mary,” he said gently. “None of it’s your fault. And you thought you’d left that life behind you. So,” he added, finally turning to give Clara a hard stare. “What are our other options? I take it you don’t have any of these vessels handy?”

She shook her head. “No. I’ve always used whatever vessels the Excommunicator I was working with had on hand. They require a great deal of focused care that I don’t have the ability to give them; any vessels I might have had would have died, unfortunately. A bit like a houseplant that isn’t watered often enough,” she added in an attempt to explain. “The psychic energies of an Excommunicate feed the vessel, keep it healthy and ‘alive’ and ready to contain any rogue spirits fed to it, for lack of a better word. I simply don’t have the right kind of energy.”

John looked disgruntled. “Great. So what do we do now? I assume you know someone who can help us?”

“No one who can get to us in time,” Clara replied with a frown. “We need to get this spirit out of Sherlock as quickly as possible; from what you’ve told me, it sounds like he’s going to do something drastic; the longer your friend is able to hide from him, the angrier and more out of control he’s going to get. Which is a bad thing, yes, but it’s also a good thing,” she hurried to reassure them as she saw Molly’s face blanch. 

“It’s good because he’ll be easier to manipulate, and easier for me to draw him out of Sherlock’s body, if he’s overly emotional and not in control of himself,” Mary added. “The only problem is, if I don’t have a vessel to put him in once he’s out, he’ll be able to find a new body to possess, and then we’ll have to hunt for him all over again. And the longer a spirit is free, the stronger it gets.”

“Another reason to get this over with as quickly as possible,” Clara agreed. She looked at John. “This is going to sound awfully cold-hearted, John, but you don’t by any chance know anyone who’s dying right now, do you?”

Mrs. Hudson sucked in a shocked breath, and even Molly gasped a bit. “Why?” the younger woman asked, twining her fingers together nervously. “I mean, I can get my hands on any number of dead bodies, but dying people is a different matter entirely!”

“Molly’s a pathologist at St. Bart’s,” John explained quickly, obviously seeing Clara’s confusion. “And I’m not affiliated with any hospital at the moment, I’m afraid. But I’m guessing you asked because you can, what, send the spirit into a dying body, trap it there somehow?”

Clara nodded, impressed by John’s acumen. “Spot on. If a spirit can be forced to possess a dying body, preferably one where there’s no consciousness left for it to control, then it’s trapped there, where it merges with the dying spirit. No one knows why, although there are many theories. My personal favorite is that the dying spirit, no matter how ready to leave the body behind, still blindly attaches itself to any energy given to it. And a ghost that has remained among the living has a great deal of energy to absorb. But the person would have to be absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt dying,” she stressed, looking from face to face and willing them to understand. “There can be no hope of revival, or else the invading spirit will be able to free itself. Death has to be the only outcome for the host body.”

“Macy Dunsworth.”

Everyone turned to look at Mrs. Hudson in surprise. She sat in her chair, taking a ladylike sip of her tea and looking just as calm and resolute as she had been since Clara arrived. “I’m sorry?” she asked, glancing at the others in case they knew who the older woman was talking about.

No, John, Molly and Mary looked just as confused as she knew she did. “My friend, Macy Dunsworth,” Mrs. Hudson explained. “She’s in hospice. Cancer.” She blinked rapidly, and Clara saw a hint of pain that was quickly masked by determination. “She’s been taken off life support and isn’t expected to last much longer. She’s comatose, but I know if she were awake and aware she’d be willing to help us.” She blinked rapidly, obviously fighting tears. “I just saw her yesterday, poor dear.”

Clara stood up and walked the few steps to Mrs. Hudson’s chair, then sank down on her knees and took the older woman’s hand gently in hers. “Are you sure?” she asked softly. “Because there can’t be any room for doubt. If there’s even the slightest chance of recovery…”

Mrs. Hudson shook her head firmly. “No. No doubt. Macy won’t be with us much longer; the hospice staff said two or three days at the most. And she’s got no family, only a few friends like me to visit and sit with her. I know no one’s there tonight; it was supposed to be my turn, but, well…” She glanced at Molly, who looked on the verge of tears herself. “She would understand, I know she would. And approve.”

Clara gauged the level of Mrs. Hudson’s belief in her own words, then nodded firmly as she rose to her feet, pausing only to press a grateful kiss to the other woman’s cheek. “All right, then. We need to get Sherlock to this hospice. Once we track him down, John, are you prepared to knock him out? Do you have any sedatives on hand to inject him with?”

“I do,” Mary said. “I have a kit at my flat. I can fetch it on the way.”

“And if we aren’t able to get at him with the needle, I can guarantee I’ll have no problem punching him,” John said grimly. 

While Molly took down the hospice address and Macy Dunsworth’s room info, Clara had John show her to the flat he and Sherlock shared. As soon as they reached the top of the stairs Clara could feel the taint of the spirit, cold and clammy, and repressed a reflexive shiver through years of practice. John, as a non-sensitive, obviously felt nothing; his trepidation and hesitation was based solely on the events that had transpired there. “He raped her,” he said without looking at Clara, staring at the still-closed door, his hand on the knob. “Moriarty. Right here, raped Molly and let her think it was Sherlock doing it to her.”

“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “But at least your friend is aware that it wasn’t Sherlock who actually did it now. The fact that your detective was able to control his eyes in that manner is actually quite remarkable; I’ve rarely seen instances where the original consciousness was able to counter the actions of the spirit possessing them. His mental control must be amazing.”

John gave a silent chuckle. “Yeah. You have no idea.” Then he took a deep breath, let it out quickly, and turned the knob.

The aura of the Moriarty spirit hung heavy in the air, even hours after he’d departed. What Clara hadn’t told John was that every act of violence helped anchor the raging spirits to this plane of existence, helped strengthen them, and the longer they waited to free Sherlock, the more difficult it was going to be.

What wasn’t going to be difficult was following Moriarty’s ectoplasmic trail; she could practically taste it, his mingled fury and selfishness and even the way he delighted in chaos.

“All right,” she said after spending five careful minutes in the flat where he’d committed such a terrible offense. She looked over at John. “Let’s go catch this bastard.”


	12. Entrapment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jim says some mean things that have absolutely nothing to do with my personal feelings for Mary. Or nurses. I just really wanted him to show what a bastard he is in this chapter.

Finding Sherlock and the invading Moriarty spirit controlling his body turned out to be exactly as simple and straightforward as Clara had predicted it would be. The expression of shock on the consulting detective’s face might have been comical under other circumstances, but his snarl of rage as he was tackled by John and Mary and then injected with the sedative was chilling. Clara could feel the power radiating from the possessed man’s form, and prayed that he would remain unconscious until they reached the hospice where Mrs. Hudson friend was waiting out her final hours.

The older woman and Molly were already there; both had insisted on meeting them, although for different reasons. Mrs. Hudson had wanted to say one last good-bye to her friend, who wouldn’t survive very long even if Moriarty’s spirit wasn’t passed into her body, and Molly absolutely refused not to be a part of the process, even if there wasn’t anything useful she could contribute. Her words, not Clara’s, nor anyone else’s for that matter. Why the pathologist thought so little of herself might be because of the trauma she was no doubt suffering after having been raped, but to Clara’s eyes it was an ongoing self-esteem issue. 

She dismissed her concerns for the other woman with difficulty, but she wasn’t here in her capacity as a therapist; she was here to help exorcise an evil spirit and restore Sherlock Holmes’ control to his body. Once that was accomplished…well, it would be up to Molly but Clara would give her her business card and the names of several others in the supernatural community who could help guide the younger woman through her recovery.

They arrived at the hospice and pulled around back to the ambulance entrance, which was fortunately unattended at the moment. Getting Sherlock onto a gurney and wheeling him inside was made easier when Molly appeared to let them in, dressed in a pair of comfortable blue scrubs and holding a purloined clipboard in one hand. They hadn’t discussed this part, but it made sense, and Clara could tell Molly felt better knowing she’d been able to help after all.

She sucked in a breath at the sight of Sherlock’s unconscious form on the gurney; he was strapped in, in case Moriarty woke up, although it wouldn’t stop him from fleeing the body, only from harming any of them. Clara offered her a sympathetic look and John gave her a sideways hug before meeting her gaze and nodding in a determined fashion; the soldier was once again going to war, and this seemed to steady Molly, who nodded back before leading them to their destination.

The hospice had the hushed atmosphere of all such places, where people have been brought to live out what was left of their lives, and Clara felt a twinge of guilt at the ruckus they could potentially cause. These people deserved dignity and peace at this time and in this place, but Moriarty had essentially forced this upon them. He had to be stopped, plain and simple, and sent out of this world so he could do no further harm.

They arrived at the proper room without running into a single other person, as if Fate itself was doing its best to help them along. Of course, a smooth run up the moment of wrestling Moriarty’s spirit out of Sherlock’s body would mean nothing if they didn’t succeed, but Clara refused to think about failure. It simply wasn’t an option, not with so much at stake.

She approved of Mary Morstan; even though she’d run from the life they both had grown up in, she’d faced it squarely once she found herself facing it again. As to whether she’d be up for the task of Excommunicating Moriarty, well, that remained to be seen. The ability to Excommunicate a spirit was as much instinct as anything, and those sorts of instincts could go very rusty through disuse. However, they had no time to seek out anyone else, not now; if something did go wrong and Moriarty escaped, then they would have to explore other options.

No. No other options would need exploring, because they wouldn’t fail.

oOo

Dizziness. Headache, immobility…what? Ah, restraints; arms and legs, across the torso. Imprisonment, torture? No, a gurney, hospital room, quiet beeps from monitors, but no sensation of anything attached to his body. Conclusion: Not his body being monitored. A ward-mate? Why hospital, what happened? Accident? Attack? Why the restraints…spinal column injury? No, head and neck unrestrained, limited movement possible, no lack of sensation from head to toe…

“Sherlock? Can you hear me?”

He opened his eyes at the sound of that soft, pleading – and very familiar – voice. Molly Hooper. Was he at St. Bart’s, then? No, the patient room was of a different design, almost homey with the wooden furnishings and patterned curtains on the window. “A hospice,” he croaked out as he returned his gaze to Molly’s face, easily seen in spite of the dim lighting in the room. “Have I been injured?”

“It’s the sedative, it hasn’t entirely worn off yet.” Another voice, also female, but entirely unfamiliar to him. “That’s why he doesn’t seem to…remember.”

“Or else it’s Moriarty trying to fuck with us.” Ah, that was Mary, John’s fiancée. No, wait, wrong; he’d never met her, why did he recognize her voice? And why was she talking about Moriarty? Moriarty was dead, dead and gone…

No. Dead, yes, but not gone. 

_Ah, there you are! I wondered where you’d got to, you naughty boy! Tried to hide but the sedative knocked you right out of your hiding place and back where I could find you again._

Moriarty. Inside his head. Inside _him_. Memory, painful, horrifying, came flooding back, and Sherlock bit back a moan of self-loathing as he caught sight of Molly Hooper again. She was smiling at him, reaching out to stroke his hair from his forehead, but the circle of bruises around her delicate throat reminded him why he couldn’t currently be trusted with her…and why she shouldn’t trust him. Shouldn’t be looking at him with such tender concern in her warm, brown eyes. He flinched away from her, opened his mouth to croak out an apology, only to lose control of his ability to speak as Moriarty exerted his control once again.

_Oh, get over yourself,_ the other man’s voice snarled in his head. _Little Miss Perfect already knows it wasn’t you, that it was me, remember? That little trick with the eyes was enough to raise her suspicions and now everyone knows about me._

“And since everybody knows, then there’s no point in pretending, is there?” he finished aloud, smirking up at Molly. “How about a kiss for old time’s sake?” he asked, and she flinched back, pulling her hand away from his head as if she’d been stung. “Aww, no?” He gave an exaggerated pout, then shifted his gaze and smirked up at Mary instead. “What about you, Miss Morstan? Interested in a threesome with Johnny boy?”

“Ignore him, Mary, you know what he’s trying to do.” That was the stranger, the woman whose voice Sherlock hadn’t recognized. Nor did Moriarty; he studied her, a quiet auburn-haired woman in her late forties, slender but tall with an air of quiet authority to her that instantly put him on his guard. 

“I know,” Mary replied, but her blue eyes flashed with anger and her lips were pulled tightly together as she paced back and forth in front of the gurney.

Ah, yes, the gurney. How quaint. “You can’t possibly believe you have me trapped here just because you’ve got Sherlock’s body strapped down,” Moriarty sneered. “I admit, I don’t really want to give him up until I have to, but if it’s a choice between seeking greener pastures and enduring you lot attempting to talk me out of hurting him…”

“Just shut it, Moriarty,” John Watson snapped as he moved into sight and placed a comforting arm around Mary’s shoulder. “Clara, what do we need to do?” He glanced over toward something Moriarty couldn’t see, something behind him. The place where the quiets beeps and whirs of medical monitors were coming from. 

“Nothing,” the stranger – Clara – said firmly. She stepped back, tugging at John’s hand and gesturing for Molly to join them. “It’s all up to Mary now.”

Alarm grew and spread; this woman, Clara, sounded not only authoritative, but as if she actually had some sort of…plan. A plan for what? To get rid of him? Impossible, he tried to tell himself, while deep within his own mind Sherlock was chuckling and pointing out that everything Moriarty knew about being a spirit was entirely self-taught…and how ignorant that could make him.

No. He wouldn’t be stopped by some random stranger that John and Molly had found to help them; there was no way in hell he was going anywhere he didn’t want to go. And if that meant giving up Sherlock’s body right now and fleeing into the night, then he’d do just that. Before they could stop him. 

As he began the process of disengaging himself, releasing the various mental tendrils he’d sunk deep into Sherlock’s psyche in order to anchor himself to the other man’s body and control his mind, he was shocked to feel his prisoner taking immediate advantage of a process he couldn’t possibly have recognized for what it was. Sherlock’s mind, so dangerous, powerful and attractive when it wasn’t wasting itself on the mundane and the trivial, was almost free, surging up to try and ensnare him, keep him locked into their shared body.

“NO!” Moriarty howled, mentally and verbally, body straining against the straps holding him to the gurney, shaking it with the strength of his fury. Dimly, in the back of his mind, the part that wasn’t simultaneously occupied with both escape and defense, he heard Mary Morstan chanting like a Druid priestess in a bad horror movie; he made the connection and desperation gave strength to his attempts to shake Sherlock loose.

“No!” he shouted again, fixing his gaze on the blonde, whose hands were weaving in some intricate, unrecognizable pattern. Sherlock once again took advantage of his distraction, attempting to wrestle him into mental submission, to paralyze him, to keep him in place while the fucking bitch did whatever voodoo it was she was attempting. No. He was James Moriarty, damn it, he wasn’t going to have his soul captured or destroyed by a fucking half-educated whore of a nurse!

“No!” he shouted a third time.

And then everything, very suddenly, went black.


	13. Freedom Isn't Free

Moriarty came back to consciousness, roaring with fury, ready to kill using Sherlock’s bare hands, ready to dive into Mary fucking Morstan’s body and wreak havoc on the others in the room, ready for vengeance, his mind crackling with furious energy…

…and found to his horror that he couldn’t move. No, he wasn’t restrained as he had been when in Sherlock’s body…wait, where was he then? A wave of disorientation fell over him as he struggled to orient himself, his fury abating into confusion and the tiniest hint of…was that terror? No, it couldn’t be, he wasn’t afraid of anything, not when he was alive, certainly not now that he was…

“Is he in there? In…her?” Molly the mouse, her voice trembling. So he wasn’t in Sherlock’s body, but why couldn’t he see, why couldn’t he fucking _move??_

More importantly, why couldn’t he _leave_?

Panic set in, his terror mounting as he heard the Morstan bitch reply, “I think so. Clara?”

“Yes, he’s in there, and my goodness is he unhappy about it!” Clara had the audacity to chuckle, to laugh at him, and Moriarty howled angrily, hurled threats at her…none of them passing through the lips of the body he now dimly sensed he was trapped in. An old, tired, worn-out body, crawling with cancer and no mind left for him to control – and thus no way for him to control the body; decrepit as it was, it was at least physical form, if he could just figure out how to work himself into the central nervous system without access to the brain…what the fuck was wrong with this stupid body, why couldn’t he find the fucking MIND???

“Stop fighting, Mr. Moriarty,” he dimly heard over the screaming of his furious, panicky thoughts. It was Clara again, Jesus Christ, would the bitch never shut up? “There’s no mind for you to control, Mrs. Dunsworth is too far gone for you to reach even if you had a year. She’s safe from your control, everyone is, because she’s dying. She’ll be gone before another hour has passed, taking you safely with her, out of reach of the mortal world.”

Her voice had a crooning, hypnotic quality to it, as if she were trying to lull him into abandoning the fight for survival, which he would never do. He’d died once and passed into another form of existence; what the fuck made her think he would just allow himself to quietly fade away this time?

“Can he hear us?”

Moriarty’s fierce struggles ceased for a moment as he heard Sherlock’s voice, hoarse and dry and sounding oddly distant now that the two men no longer shared a single body.

“Yes.” That was Clara, sounding far too confident. Damn her to hell, where had they fucking found someone who knew what she was doing? Who understood, he thought bitterly, how to deal with spirits and possession and all the occult crap he’d once laughed about?

There were more sounds, the restraints being removed from Sherlock’s body, someone – most likely John Watson, useless as he was most of the time – helping him to his feet. Being torn from his body had apparently done some damage; good, Moriarty thought viciously. He hoped it was permanent, that Sherlock might have a limp or lost the use of a hand or even – glorious thought! – some of his treasured mental faculties. 

There was the sensation of a hand on his chest, as if Sherlock was feeling the fading heartbeat that Moriarty fought so grimly to keep going, and then, very close, as if he’d leaned down and was whispering in this body’s ear, Moriarty heard: “Good riddance, dear Jim. I sincerely hope you rot in hell for an eternity; not for what you did to me, but for what you did to John and Mary and especially to Molly.”

“Sherlock, what – no!” Moriarty heard Watson’s protesting voice, then the sound of someone murmuring to him, a bit of a scuffle as if he were being held back. Held back from doing what?

A sudden feeling of suffocating answered that question; Sherlock Holmes, on-the-side-of-the-angels-but-not-one-of-them, had apparently laid his hand over the mouth and nose of the body Moriarty had been forced into. A bubble of hysterical laughter burst from his non-existent mouth; he laughed and laughed as his hearing dimmed and even the feel of Sherlock’s palm on his host body’s face faded into nothingness.

The last thought James Moriarty carried into darkness was that at least he had the consolation of knowing that one day, Sherlock Holmes would be in hell right next to him.

oOo

Sherlock gazed down at the body of the elderly woman – Mrs. Dunsworth, Martha Hudson’s dear friend who’d been dying long before they entered her room – that Moriarty’s spirit had been forced into. Even with Clara’s assurances that the elderly cancer patient had no consciousness left for Moriarty to attach himself to hadn’t been enough; he’d had to ensure that bastard’s death, not wait and allow the natural course of things. He looked up at his landlady, willing her to understand; all he saw on her face was acceptance as she nodded and reached out to grasp his hand, squeezing gently before turning her attention to her friend’s corpse.

Sherlock rose on unsteady feet, pushing back the chair on which John had settled him after his disorienting release from the gurney. He wasn’t interested in Mrs. Hudson’s final good-bye’s to her friend; even if he was, it was one of those private moments people seemed to need when someone they cared for had passed away.

He wasn’t interested in much of anything at the moment, truth be told, except getting the hell out of this room, finding someplace safe and quiet where he could just…think. Process everything that had happened. His flat would do…no, not his flat, he thought with a surge of revulsion as he caught sight of Molly Hooper, standing quietly next to Clara – John’s former sister-in-law – and Mary. All three women were extraordinary in their own ways, but it was Molly whose opinion counted…and it was Molly he’d surely disappointed with his actions tonight.

He took one step, no more, then felt a wave of dizziness crashing over him. He fell forward, warm hands catching him, holding him up – John?

No, not John. He looked up and met concerned brown eyes. He croaked out, “I’m sorry, Molly Hooper,” before passing out.

oOo

When Sherlock regained consciousness, the first thing he noticed was that he was no longer in the nursing home, although definitely still in a medical facility; the décor was completely different, far more utilitarian than the attempt at hominess the hospice projected. In fact, the room looked vaguely familiar; a private patient room, the usual plain white walls, slatted blinds on the window, no-nonsense white-and-grey speckled linoleum floors…

“St. Barts,” he said aloud, feeling stupid for taking so long to recognize his surroundings.

“Got it in one.” He swiveled his head to see Molly Hooper just stepping into the room, a bright smile on her lips and two cups of coffee in her hands. “Black, two sugars,” she announced, handing him the first cup.

“And extra light, extra sweet,” Sherlock automatically responded with her own preference. He stared at her, honestly bewildered by her presence, her ease with him. He’d just murdered someone right in front of her, and although it was true that there was no longer a Macy Dunsworth left to kill, he’d cold-bloodedly smothered the shell of her body while James Moriarty was trapped within. “Why are you here?” he asked before he could stop himself.

Molly blinked in surprise. “Where else would I be? Mrs. Hudson took care of the arrangements for her friend – may she rest in peace, poor woman, Mrs. Dunsworth, I mean, not Mrs. Hudson…although Mrs. Hudson went through quite a lot, too, of course. And John took Clara and Mary back to hers – Mary’s, that is – and he’s coming with some clean clothes and things for you…”

Molly would undoubtedly have continued to ramble on nervously if Sherlock didn’t cut her off. “No, I don’t mean…I mean, why are you here? With me? Being yourself, being Molly Hooper and not being…why aren’t you angry or afraid, why don’t you hate me?” he finally burst out.

“Hate you?” Molly repeated, as if unsure she’d heard him right. “Why would I? You didn’t do anything wrong, it’s not your fault Moriarty took control of your body and…” Her eyes widened as she finally realized what he was talking about, and he wondered at her ability to forget, even for an instant, what James Moriarty had done to her via the medium of Sherlock’s own body. How he’d violated her. Assaulted her.

Raped her.

“I raped you, Molly,” Sherlock said, his voice thick with self-loathing. “You have no idea how sorry I am…”

“Sherlock!” Molly cut him off sharply, her eyes enormous in her pale face. She put the coffee cups down on the table and seated herself on the edge of the bed. Sherlock flinched away, but she reached out and took his hands firmly in hers, holding them tightly when he made as if to pull away. “Sherlock Holmes, you listen to me,” Molly said fiercely. “I know that you would never, never hurt me like that. It wasn’t you, it was Jim. He was the one who did all those terrible things, not you. 

“Molly, it doesn't matter...it was still _me_ , I was the one who did those things to you!” Sherlock protested angrily, finally twisting his hands free of her grasp. He was undeserving of either her love or her forgiveness, although he craved both. He gazed at her intently, willing her to understand his own guilt in all this. “Moriarty's spirit may have possessed me, but it was my thoughts and memories he looted to find the worst possible way to hurt you, just as he did for John. Only for John the damage was purely emotional; what he did to you – what he made me do to you...” He shook his head, raking his fingers through his tangled locks, tugging at them in his agitation.

When Molly tried to calm him, he turned away from her, hunching into himself, curling up to make himself as small as possible. “Just leave, Molly,” he said, his voice muffled from where he’d pressed his face into his pillow. “Please, for God’s sake, find yourself a real hero to love and not a…a broken freak like me!”

The door opened as Sherlock half-shouted those last, despairing words, revealing the figure of John Watson standing, frozen in shock, a Tesco’s bag in one hand, the other on the doorknob. Sherlock groaned at the sight of his friend, to whom Moriarty had been so bloody awful, and burrowed further into the bedding. He couldn’t take it anymore; he desperately needed to be alone, to enter his Mind Palace and get his frayed nerves and clearly overwrought emotions under control. “Please, Molly,” he said, refusing to look at her. “Will you please, just…go?”

Quietly, without another word, he heard her cross the room, heard John say something low and undoubtedly soothing, heard the sound of the door closing, and then John’s feet crossing the room and dropping the bag on the floor. “A change of clothes, some toiletries, and the pleasure of my company for a few minutes,” he said, his voice calm. “Then I’m leaving, going back to Mary’s to spend the night. You’ve already been discharged, Mycroft took care of all the paperwork.”

That brought Sherlock out of his fetal position; with a scowl, he looked up at John, standing with folded arms by the bedside. “Mycroft? Why did you have to bring Mycroft into this, John?”

“I didn’t ‘bring him into’ anything,” John replied, still infuriatingly calm. Why wasn’t he ranting at Sherlock, calling him names, punching him for allowing Moriarty to spew such vile filth at him – and especially at Mary? Before Sherlock could demand an answer to those questions, John continued, “Don’t ask me how – I’ll leave that up to you, thank you very much! – but he already knew. Seems the British Government knows a bit more about the existence of the occult than we might have suspected.”

An intriguing revelation – and one Sherlock firmly intended to follow up on at some point – but not one that particularly interested him at the moment. “John, why are you and Molly being so…so…nice to me?” he demanded, recognizing the absurdity of the question even as he asked it. But he desperately needed to know the answer, and the ones Molly had tried to give him just hadn’t made sense. There was no way he could be freed of accountability, it just wasn’t possible.

Or was it? As he listened to John telling him essentially the same thing that Molly had – that it wasn’t his fault, that Moriarty was the one they blamed – he found himself just as unwilling to believe it from his friend’s lips as he had been when hearing it from the woman he lo…held in very high regard.

Whom he absolutely beyond the shadow of a doubt did not deserve to have in his life in any capacity. Especially not now. What had he ever brought Molly Hooper except pain and heartache?

“Sherlock!” John was shaking him a bit, and Sherlock glared at him, but it had no strength to it.

“What, John?” he snapped, loathing the weakness in his voice. Moriarty’s abuses had included a general lack of care for Sherlock’s physical wellbeing that went above and beyond any amount of disregard for transport the detective had exhibited when on a case.

“I said, you idiot, that Clara wanted me to tell you that even if you don’t believe me or Molly, that you should believe her, because she’s the expert,” John said. “She said just like any other trauma it’ll take time, but that you need to let yourself recover fully, get used to being back in control of your body, and that eventually you’ll be able to forgive yourself. She said no one’s strong enough to stop from being possessed, even a genius like you, and that Moriarty was one of the most powerful spirits she’s ever encountered.” He grinned, an unexpected smile that crinkled the lines around his eyes and mouth. “She also wants to know if you’d be willing to tell her, in detail, exactly how you managed that trick with the eyes, because she’s never heard of anyone who’s been possessed being able to do anything like that.”

The grin faded as he reached out and gripped Sherlock’s forearm in one hand. “And however you did do it, Sherlock? I’m just glad you did. Because that was the first thing that tipped Molly off that there was something very wrong with you. And that was the thing that convinced me that maybe it wasn’t just you back on drugs or having a really, really shitty day.”

“Well, I’ve had worse,” Sherlock mumbled.

“The hell you have!” John exclaimed, a shocked expression on his face that gradually turned into a grin. Then suddenly the two of them were chuckling, laughing, leaning weakly on one another as Sherlock reached up and held onto his friend’s shoulder out of a sudden need to feel that John was really here, that he wasn’t hallucinating this encounter.

“Right, then,” John said once their mirth abated. He lifted up the Tesco’s bag and dropped it on the bed. I’ll just wait outside while you get changed, and then either I or Molly will take you home.”

Sherlock paused in the act of reaching into the bag for his clothes. “Molly? Molly left, John.”

John shook his head. “Nah. She’s just in the visitor’s lounge, waiting for me. Well, waiting for you, actually,” he corrected himself. “She wants to take you home, if you’ll let her.”

“Why?” Sherlock demanded, although he’d already deduced her reasoning – and wasn’t sure if he approved or was appalled.

“So you can both confront the scene of the crime,” John replied bluntly. As expected. “Because she wants you to really understand that she doesn’t blame you, that if you need her to forgive you, she will – even though we both agree you haven’t done anything that needs forgiving.”

“Not even murdering Mrs. Hudson’s friend?”

John shrugged. “Sorry, mate, you’re not going to get any of us worked up about how you took care of Moriarty,” he replied. “Mrs. Dunsworth was already gone; Clara says if there was any part of her left, any consciousness lingering, Moriarty could have used it to launch himself from her body. And since both Mrs. Dunsworth and Moriarty were already dead, technically you didn’t murder anyone.” He gave Sherlock a steady look. “So. No matter what your answer is to my next question, I’ll be spending the night at Mary’s. Shall I tell Molly to go home, or will you let her take you back to the flat?”


	14. Confronting Demons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock and Molly return to the scene of the crime.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to all my followers and commenters and readers! You make it all worthwhile!

Molly nervously sprang to her feet when the lounge door opened, just as she had the last two times, when family members of other patients had come into the room. This time, however, it was a familiar face that greeted her – the one she’d been hoping to see but not expecting.

Sherlock was scowling, but then, she doubted he’d wear any other expression when forced into a wheelchair. The nurse pushing him wore a look of exaggerated patience that told Molly more than words exactly how much grumbling Sherlock had been doing. “Here you are, Mr. Holmes,” the older woman announced with forced cheer. She shook her head and made an exaggerated eye-roll as she added, “Dr. Hooper, he’s all yours.”

“Thanks, Florence,” Molly called after the other woman as she finished pushing Sherlock over so that he was sat next to the low table covered with magazines. She waved one hand over her shoulder in acknowledgment, then the door swung shut behind her. Molly looked at Sherlock and tried a smile. “So. You’re ready to go, then? Good, that’s good, that’s really good.”

“I don’t need to sit in this ridiculous contraption all the way to the hospital entrance, do I?” Sherlock asked, making as if to rise to his feet.

Molly was at his side in a shot, hand pressing firmly into his shoulder, forcing him back down. “Yes, actually, you do. You’ll have enough of a hard time managing the stairs at Baker Street.” She drew a deep breath before looking him squarely in the eyes and adding, “And who knows how you’ll be after we get back?”

“Molly, you don’t need to do this, and I shouldn’t…”

“Sherlock,” she said kindly as she took hold of the handles and wheeled the chair about so it once again faced the door, “just shut it for now. I want to do this; I need to do this. Because as much as I don’t blame – and I don’t,” she added quickly when he craned his neck in order to give her a disbelieving look, “but as much as I don’t blame you, I also need to confront it, the place where it happened, or else I might never be able to come back to Baker Street again.”

“You’d be better off if you didn’t,” he muttered, but Molly chose to ignore him, knowing the spirit (she winced at her internal use of the word) in which his words were intended. Not as a rejection of her, but his own guilt still eating at him. Instead she simply wheeled him out of the room and down the hall to the lift.

They exited the hospital in silence, but Molly could sense the tension radiating off him as the cab she’d called pulled up at the curb. When she reached down to help Sherlock to his feet, he flinched away, and she bit her lip hard to keep the tears that threatened under control. She was the one who’d been assaulted, true, but Sherlock had been forced to witness his own body being used against him in so horrific a manner. Any reluctance on her part to touch him had vanished when he’d collapsed into her arms back at the hospice; her heart had raced and she’d broken out into a sweat as she wrapped her arms around him, but it had been as much out of concern for his physical well being as it was for her own.

When they reached the flat, however, the return of her racing heart and sweaty palms, as well a rising sense of panic, warned her that perhaps she wasn’t as ready to face this particular demon as she’d thought she was. Sherlock seemed to feel the same way; he hesitated a long, long time before exiting the cab and determinedly making his way to the front door. Molly considering just staying where she was and instructing the driver to take her back to her own flat, but she knew it would just be delaying the inevitable if she did. The look Sherlock gave her told her that he understood exactly what was going through her mind as she hesitantly exited and shut the door behind her; she straightened her shoulders and offered up a forced smile as she joined him on the stoop.

oOo

Molly Hooper, Sherlock concluded as he unlocked the front door and entered the building, was the single most extraordinary woman he’d ever met. He watched her out of the corner of his eye the entire cab ride, while pretending to be absorbed in his own thoughts. He could see the tension rising in her the closer they got to Baker Street, noted her hesitation – matching his own – upon exiting the cab, and was impressed with her quiet resolve when she finally joined him on the pavement.

When the door clicked shut behind them, she jumped a little than gave an apologetic giggle and shook her head. “Sorry, just…sorry,” she finished, as if she had no idea what to say.

That was fine; he didn’t, either. What exactly was the protocol when escorting a woman you’d raped – technically and emotionally true even if she and John and Clara insisted otherwise – back to the scene of the crime? Should he precede her up the stairs or go with the standard ‘ladies first’ rule that had been dunned into him since early childhood?

Molly seemed to sense his hesitation; she took his arm and silently urged him forward. They traversed the short length of hall, then began the emotionally and physically uncomfortable walk up the stairs. They were wide enough for the two of them to go side by side, and as Molly seemed disinclined to release her hold on him, that was how they took the steps, Sherlock clutching the railing as his weakened physique betrayed him.

As soon as they reached the hall and were faced with the door to his flat, they stopped simultaneously, staring at it. Then Sherlock felt Molly’s eyes on him, and turned his head to peer at her, to see if she’d changed her mind, if this was as far as she would go, but he read nothing but resolution in her gaze. She had always had a core of steel, his Molly (wait, _his_ Molly?), and he was relieved to discover that Moriarty’s actions hadn’t affected that inner strength. He straightened his back, determined to face the scene of the crime with what he hoped would be equal dignity. Fishing the key out of his jacket pocket, he unlocked the door and escorted Molly inside.

oOo

It was terrible, being here again, was Molly’s first thought. She felt her heart drumming in her chest, which tightened so that she felt as if she couldn’t breathe. Sherlock seemed to be having a similar reaction when she forced herself to look at him and not at the spot on the floor where Moriarty had done such unspeakable things to her. Of course, his pale face and the slight tremor of his hands could be due to exhaustion as well; he really should have stayed overnight in the hospital but if Mycroft hadn’t discharged him, he probably would have simply left on his own. At least this way he had a friend with him.

Of course, would a real friend make him go through such a potentially traumatic moment when he was still physically weakened? She knew it was ridiculous to feel guilty about it, but suddenly that was all she felt – guilt at making Sherlock do this right after being discharged from hospital…

“Molly, I do wish you would stop that,” Sherlock said crossly, breaking into her thoughts. She looked at him in confusion, then realized she was digging her fingers into his arm. She let him go and stepped back, about to apologize, when he shook his head and spoke again. “No, not that, Molly, I barely felt it. No, stop blaming yourself for any of this. I needed to come back here and so did you; it wouldn’t matter if I was fainting from exhaustion or at the peak of health. This is where Moriarty used me to rape you. And if we are to move past that moment, to find a way to not blame ourselves for what happened, then this is where we need to be right now.”

“Agreed,” she found herself saying. Then she reached out and offered him her hand, unsure if he would take it or if he would even understand why she needed to do it. But he surprised her, reaching out instantly and clasping her icy fingers in his own. They stood there, side by side, for a long time, looking down at the site where Moriarty had attempted to destroy their friendship, and began to believe that he’d lost that battle just as he’d lost the battle to remain on this plane of existence.


	15. Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

It took Mary nearly two weeks before she could tell John the specifics of what Moriarty had said to her. John listened stoically as she recounted all the hurtful lies Moriarty had fed her while still pretending to be Sherlock. All the reasons she had for not wanting to believe them – and all the reasons she had for not entirely being able to convince herself they weren’t actually true.

The catalyst for her recounting of those painful words was Sherlock’s unexpected visit to her flat. He’d been keeping to himself, barely stirring from his room except for occasional forays into the kitchen in search of biscuits to munch on or a cup of coffee if John happened to have made a pot. And it had taken him almost four days to do that much, long enough for John to consider contacting Mycroft – who had spent the first day after Sherlock’s release from hospital closeted away with his brother while John stayed over at Mary’s. But Clara had counseled patience: “He’s treating this like a case, John, not eating or sleeping, just going over everything in his mind the way you’ve described on your blog. If a week passes and nothing changes, then we should start to worry.”

John had remained in contact with Molly during that time, and knew that Sherlock hadn’t spoken to her since she’d brought him home. But Molly didn’t seem upset or worried, and although she’d taken time off from work to recover from her ordeal, she was back to being the cheerful, sunny woman he’d always known, which was a relief. She and Clara had had several therapeutic sessions together, and John was grateful that his former sister-in-law was able to continue to help them. She’d even started spending time with Mrs. Hudson, gossiping and drinking tea, and John suspected a lifelong friendship was blooming there.

Mary, on the other hand, had quietly but firmly refused any offers of help, claiming she just wanted to put the whole experience behind her. John had fretted, Clara had once again counseled patience – and then Sherlock had arrived, knocking quietly at the door and immediately launching into an apology before Mary could do more than gape at him.

“May I come in?”

Mary glanced uncertainly at John, who gave an encouraging nod, pleased to see his friend not only out and about, but freshly shaved, his hair washed and even looking as if it had been trimmed, dressed in his usual dark, expensive suit over a crisp white shirt. It was a far cry from the disheveled form he’d presented, clad in his tattiest pyjamas and dressing gown, feet bare and eyes unfocused, just the day before. “Yes, please, come in,” Mary finally said, stepping back and allowing Sherlock to enter her flat for the second time.

“I do promise, Mary, this visit will not be quite as, erm, contentious as the first,” Sherlock said lightly, and John nearly choked on his coffee; was his friend making a _joke_ about his possession? He wasn’t sure if he should be shocked and angry on Mary’s behalf, or pleased on Sherlock’s, since it was the first sign that he’d begun to move past the things Moriarty had done while occupying his body.

Mary seemed to take it in stride, smiling in that way she had that crinkled her nose and the corners of her eyes at the same time. The smile John had grown to love and was very, very happy to see again on her lovely face.

He went to stand by Mary’s side, pleased when she took his hand without removing her gaze from Sherlock’s face. They both listened quietly as he apologized, promising Mary that everything Moriarty had told her was a lie, which John was quick to confirm, even not knowing exactly what hateful things the spirit had spewed out.

When he finished speaking, Mary thanked him quietly. “And I do hope we can try lunch again sometime,” she added with another small smile. “Without the uninvited guest this time, of course!”

Sherlock smiled slightly, tilting his head in acknowledgement. “I can’t promise not to kick out a few deductions, Mary, but I can promise that none of them will be lies – or meant to hurt you.”

“Oh, I think Moriarty already shared the ones that would hurt the worst,” Mary replied. John felt her hand tighten on his. “At least John knows now that we shouldn’t expect…that there won’t be any children in our future.”

Sherlock cocked an eyebrow at her. “Are you sure about that?” he asked with a grin. Then, before John or Mary could ask him to explain himself, he mumbled some excuse about being needed on a case, and closed the door firmly behind him.

“I thought…I thought the doctors told you you couldn’t have children,” John said in a hushed voice after Sherlock had left.

Mary nodded, wide-eyed. “They did, John – well, they said it would be almost impossible,” she corrected herself, tears glimmering in her eyes as she raised her free hand and held it, trembling, over her abdomen. “Oh, John, could he be right?”

As he enfolded Mary in his embrace, John nodded. “He’s rarely wrong about things like this. He must have seen signs we missed. A quick trip to the chemist’s should confirm things, but before that…” He dropped to one knee and Mary gasped, lifting her fingers up to cover her mouth with her free hand, the one he wasn’t still holding firmly in his grip. “Marry me,” John said with a joyful smile.

“But you still don’t know everything about me,” Mary protested, a single tear slipping free and sliding down her cheek.

“Do you have any other secrets bigger than the fact that you can personally exorcise spirits that have possessed people?” John asked.

She shook her head and gave him a watery smile. He nodded firmly. “Right, then. That’s all I need to know about you. I think you’ve been Mary Morstan long enough; how do you feel about becoming Mary Watson?”

“God, yes!” With that John clambered back up to his feet and hugged her tightly, kissing every part of her face he could reach until finally their lips met and clung. 

No matter how horribly things had been, if there was a chance that he and Mary might be parents after all, then at least something good had come out of it.

oOo

Sherlock strode down the street, feeling lighter than he had in weeks. He’d noted the signs of Mary’s possible pregnancy when Moriarty was still possessing him, when all he could do was watch and observe and bide his time, and he was pleased that at least one good thing had come out of this whole sordid mess. Well, not that he could take any responsibility for Mary’s condition of course – and wouldn’t John have some pointed questions for him if he could! – but something positive had…

His thoughts stumbled to a confused halt as he suddenly realized something so very basic that he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten it until now. No, not forgotten it; refused to consider it, to even think about it. He and Molly had exchanged medical information before he last saw her, each reassuring the other that no diseases had been transmitted during their mutual rape by Moriarty, but he hadn’t asked her about birth control, nor had she mentioned it. Dear God, what if he’d…what if she…

He hailed a taxi in a daze, having it bring him to St. Bart’s, gnawing nervously on his thumbnail the entire time. Of course it was likely Molly had taken a dose of levonorgestrel – he recalled vaguely that it could be taken up to two or three days after intercourse – or even more likely that she was already using some form of contraceptive, but he’d never asked. He’d buried the question itself so deeply that even Moriarty hadn’t thought to taunt him about it.

_What if Mary wasn’t the only one who was pregnant?_

The question haunted him the entire 20 minutes it took to reach their destination.


	16. Questions Answered

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Penultimate chapter, folks, only the epilogue left to go. Thanks for sticking with it, and thanks to liathwen for giving this chapter a quick once-over!

Molly looked up from her microscope, startled, as the door crashed open. She jumped to her feet as Sherlock rushed into the room. “Sherlock? What’s wrong? Has something happened?” Her breath caught as she asked, “Has Jim…”

“No, no, he’s gone, Mary and Clara say it’s for good and until presented with evidence to the contrary, we have no reason to doubt them,” he said dismissively. 

Relieved, Molly settled back into her seat, but kept her eyes on him. They hadn’t seen one another since she’d brought him back to the flat, although he’d texted her at least once a day since then, and had even called and awkwardly asked how she was doing one memorable Thursday afternoon. She knew he needed time and distance to continue processing everything that had happened, and it had certainly helped her as well. Well, that and her therapy sessions with Clara. 

“Then what’s wrong?” she asked, repeating her earlier question, noting the signs of strain on Sherlock’s face, the agitation in his body, and a new fear flashed across her mind, squeezing her heart in her chest and shortening her breathing. “Sherlock, please tell me you don’t need to…to pee in a cup,” she said, trying not to let the hurt and worry creep into her voice.

“What?” He stopped short in his pacing, staring at her incredulously. “Are you insane? Allow some foreign substance to take hold of my mind the way Moriarty did? I’d rather throw myself off St. Bart’s roof for real!”

Relieved, Molly just nodded, accepting him at his word. “Then what,” she said patiently, for the third time, “is wrong?”

He approached her slowly, warily, as if expecting her to jump and run if he got too close, but Moly just sat there and waited, trying to be patient with him. None of them were completely back to normal yet – she’d had her friend Meena stay over at the flat for a few days, just because she couldn’t sleep, and had lied to her friend about why. She hadn’t even felt guilty about it, knowing that without hard evidence to back up her story, she’d never be believed. Meena was great for girls’ night out and gossip, but she had no patience for the supernatural or anything else she disdainfully classified as ‘New Age crap’.

“Molly, did you…are you…what I mean to ask is, have you…” Sherlock stumbled to a verbal halt and Molly wondered once again if he’d taken something. But the haunted look in his eyes stopped the demand from passing her lips; instead, she waited as patiently as she could for him to spit it out. Under other circumstances it might be funny, seeing Sherlock stumbling over his words the way she used to around him, but right now all she felt was rising concern.

For his part, he took a deep breath, visibly took hold of himself – including straightening his posture and carefully folding his hands behind his back – before meeting her gaze and finally getting to the point. “Molly, have you had a pregnancy test since I – since Moriarty,” he corrected himself quickly, “…since you were assaulted?”

She shook her head, oddly relieved to find it was something so normal and every-day that had him in such a strop. “No. No need to,” she added when his brow furrowed in obvious concern. “I’ve a birth control implant, and I checked, it’s still in place…Oh!” she exclaimed as her mind caught up with the reason behind his question. “Oh, no, Sherlock, it’s fine, I’m not…no, there was no chance I could be pregnant, I promise! Nothing to worry about there, and we’ve already exchanged our medical information, so we know there’s nothing else!”

She’d been clean, he’d been clean; test results from before and after the assault had been exchanged via emails, but she had simply not thought to say anything about her birth control implant, for the simple reason that it was included in her medical history – which she’d assumed he’d read, and not just the paperwork assuring him she hadn’t transmitted any diseases to him.

When she reminded him of that fact, he scrunched his face up and looked at her as if she were speaking gibberish. “Molly, I didn’t read any of that; once you told me I had nothing to worry about, I didn’t. Worry about it, that is. I deleted the email as soon as I received it. I told you once that I trusted you, and that extends to every aspect of our relationship.”

She’d been about to respond to his unexpected confession with a profound and sincere thank you, but that last word froze her tongue to the roof of her mouth and all she could do was stare at him. He stared right back at her, as if he, too, was stunned by his choice of word, then nodded sharply, as if coming to a decision. “Yes, I said relationship,” he said, hands still tightly clasped behind his back. “And I know we’re hardly in a position to begin any sort of a romance, but when you’re ready for that sort of thing – and if you still feel as strongly for me as you once did – then I would, I think it would be good if, that is to say, I think I could say I l…”

Before he could continue to fumble with what sounded very much like a confession of love to her, Molly stood up, advanced, and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Sherlock, if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, then I strongly urge you to stop talk and start acting.”

He stared at her blankly, then his sharp gaze swept her from head to feet; his eyes lit up the way they did when he’d come to a particularly pleasing conclusion, and then his hands were settled tentatively on her hips and he was lowering his head, watching her the entire time, until finally their lips met.

The kiss was brief, but so sweet that Molly wished it would never end. It wasn’t a kiss on the cheek like he’d given her that one, horrible Christmas; it wasn’t the hard, demanding kisses Jim Moriarty had abused her with. She resolutely put aside the tang of fear that memory brought up; Sherlock wasn’t Jim, he was just…Sherlock. Himself. Kissing her. A soft, exploratory kiss. In a word: perfect.

Well, almost perfect, as she quickly discovered. The next kiss was even better, as was the one after that, the one where she swiped her tongue across his lips, encouraging him to open his mouth to her, and he opened so beautifully, bashful but somehow eager at the same time as the kiss deepened to something that could never be mistaken for anything but mutual passion.

When they pulled apart after that third kiss, both of them breathing heavily, Molly smiled and laid her hand on his chest, feeling the rapid thump of his heart beneath her palm. “That was…lovely,” she said, just as Sherlock blurted out, “Amazing!”

They grinned at one another like a couple of teenagers, then Sherlock shifted his feet and slowly laid his hand over hers. “Molly, I want you to know that I don’t…there are no expectations,” he said in a rush. “We take this as quickly or as slowly as you’d like. I’m rubbish at relationships, always have been, but if I fuck up – and believe me, I will,” he added with a wry grin, “then I expect you to put me right again. All right?”

He peered anxiously into her eyes, and she finally gave into an urge she’d had since about five seconds after meeting him, reaching up to ruffle her fingers through his dark curls. “All right,” she agreed. “And if you change your mind or…or anything,” she said, voice faltering slightly but steeling herself to say the words she knew had to be said, “then just tell me, okay? I’m a big girl; if it turns out this is just reaction to what happened and you realize your feelings aren’t what you thought they were, just know that I’ll always be your friend. No matter what.”

She fell silent when he leaned down and kissed her again, cupping her cheek in his free hand, the other still resting warmly over hers. When the kiss ended, he pulled back and looked her straight in the eyes. “Molly, when I told you I trusted you, that I'd always trusted you, I didn't just mean I trusted you as a colleague or a friend, or even that I trusted you with my life or to keep my secrets. What I was really saying was that I trusted you with my heart. And I always will,” he added in a husky near-whisper. 

That was all Molly needed to hear to still her sudden doubts and fears; if he was admitting to feeling more for her than friendship since before Moriarty’s unwelcome intrusion into their lives in spirit form, then she could believe in the depth of those feelings. “Then I trust you with mine,” she said. “But I think you already know that.”

The memory of what Jim Moriarty had done would always be a part of them, a figurative ghost that would never entirely be exorcised; Molly knew that, just as she knew that it would take a long time before she would feel comfortable enough to allow physical intimacy beyond the kissing and hugging she and Sherlock had just enjoyed. But no matter how long it took, she was confident that as time passed and the raw wounds started to heal, the two of them would be able to move beyond the damage. She looked forward to that day with an eagerness and lightness of heart she hoped that Sherlock shared. 

For now, she was content to take what Sherlock was willing to offer her – and what she was able to accept. When she tilted her head up for another kiss, however, they were interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Loudly. Molly blushed as she and Sherlock turned to see Greg Lestrade standing by the door, a bewildered expression on his face. “How long has this been going on?” he demanded. “How the fuck did I miss it?”

Molly tried not to giggle, but couldn’t hold it in when Sherlock gave the other man a withering look, wrapping his arm securely around her waist as he replied, “Really, Graham, you have to stop making such a habit of missing the obvious.” Without pausing he turned to Molly and added, “I suspect the good Detective Inspector has a corpse for me to examine, isn’t that right Gr…er, Greg?” he corrected himself as Molly gave him a disapproving look.

She rewarded him with a smile as she slipped out of his embrace. “Of course, Greg, we’ll be happy to help out.”

Lestrade continued to stare at the two of them bemusedly as they joined him at the door – and Sherlock swept past him, grabbing a smiling Molly by the hand as she shrugged apologetically at the police officer. “Right, dead body,” he muttered. “We’ll save the snogging interrogation for later then.”

He followed after them, shaking his head and muttering to himself about never being able to figure out Sherlock Holmes if he lived to be a hundred – and grinning as he took several surreptitious snaps with his mobile of the joined hands of the two. Not for blackmail purposes, of course; just to show around to a few of the other members of the Yard – such as Sally Donovan – who would never believe him without solid evidence.

He couldn’t _wait_ to hear the story behind this development.


	17. Epilogue - Two Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, folks, here is the smutty (but sweet!) epilogue to this little supernatural tale. Thanks for sticking with it and I hope you enjoy this little ending. My thanks to minirose for helping me figure out what the scene was missing!

Molly stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. She still had a hard time believing that this day had finally come, that she’d gotten through it without mishap, and that it was drawing to an end.

An end, and a beginning, she thought as she carefully pulled out the seemingly endless number of hairpins that had been required to hold her hair in place. As she did it cascaded down around her face and shoulders, a tumble of curls that would be gone by her morning shower.

As she put hairpin after hairpin on the edge of the sink, she reflected back to how much her life had changed since the discovery that supernatural forces were not only real, but could have devastating – if not deadly – effects on the ‘real’ world.

She and Sherlock had confronted the site of their mutual assault by Moriarty, the living room of this very flat, and come away from that moment united in their determination to overcome the evils Moriarty had done both before and after his death.

John and Mary had gotten married and were now the proud parents of eighteen-month-old Gwyneth Watson. Molly and Sherlock had stood as her godparents when she was two months old; Clara had come to the ceremony as well as John’s sister Harry. The two women hadn’t reconciled, exactly, but at least they were on friendlier terms now than they had been.

Just as she and Sherlock could be said to be on ‘friendlier terms’ now. Molly giggled softly as the last of the hairpins landed on the edge of the sink. She swept them all up and dumped them in the small box she used for storage, then bent down to put them in the cabinet under the sink.

When she stood back up and glanced in the mirror, a second face appeared next to her reflection. She smiled and turned around to rest her hands on Sherlock’s chest. “Well, hello there, Mr. Holmes!” she said softly.

He leaned down and kissed her warmly. When the kiss ended, he brushed his lips against her ear and murmured, “Well, hello to you, too Mrs. Holmes!”

Molly couldn’t stop smiling if she tried. Today had been perfect; no problems, no murders or attempted murders at the wedding – _her_ wedding, to Sherlock Holmes, the man she’d loved for so many years – everything just perfect. And now it was the wedding night, the first time they would sleep together as husband and wife – well, technically the first time they would sleep together, ever, since the Moriarty Incident hardly counted and was not a memory either of them relished.

She was nervous, yes, but not because she thought any bad memories would come between them; no, she was nervous because it was Sherlock she was about to make love to. Her husband. That was a steadying thought; he loved her, they were married, they had their whole lives together to look forward to…bliss. He’d been as good as his word about letting her set the pace for their romantic relationship, never pushing her for anything more than she was able or willing to give. When he’d proposed to her a year ago, she’d thought about having sex then, but realized she just wasn’t ready yet. And when she’d hesitantly asked him if he wouldn’t mind waiting until their wedding night, he’d been fully supportive of her wishes. “I’ve waited this long, Molly, what’s another year?” had been his exact words. In any other man she would have taken it for sarcasm, but not Sherlock. No, he meant it, and she loved him even more for it.

They’d moved in together six months after he proposed, and although Molly had been nervous about sharing a bed with him, it had turned out to be a non-issue since he rarely slept when on cases – and had been very busy with cases the entire time. The few nights he had tumbled into bed with her he’d simply snuggled up against her and fallen swiftly to sleep. She’d grown used to the feel of his body against hers and his arms wrapped around her – who would have figured Sherlock Holmes as a snuggler? – and felt a tingle go up her spine at the thought of something more happening between them tonight.

“Let me help you with that.” Sherlock turned her to the mirror and started undoing the buttons of her gown. Molly bit her lip to keep a nervous giggle from escaping as she felt his long, dexterous fingers against her skin. She wasn’t exactly a virgin, so why did she feel so nervous? And Sherlock had seen her naked body plenty of times – they’d become accustomed to dressing and undressing in front of one another, and Sherlock had never been body-shy. But this was different, and she felt a surge of nervousness wash over her. What if she wasn’t actually ready, what if she panicked or had a flashback or…

“Molly, honestly, you have to stop that.” Her husband’s words sounded irritable, but the expression on his face was one of understanding as she met his gaze in the mirror. He’d finished undoing all the tiny buttons that held her dress to her body while she kept her arms over her bodice so it wouldn’t simply fall to the bathroom floor. “Just because we’re going to make love for the first time doesn’t mean you have anything to be nervous or self-conscious about.” He seemed to reconsider his words, and a slight frown wrinkled his brow as he added, “Well, of course there is but try not to be.”

He shook his head and his frown deepened as if he realized what he’d said wasn’t actually making it any better, and Molly turned once again to face him. She raised her hands and cradled his face, pulling him down for a warm kiss as her dress slid to the floor. “I know,” she said when the kiss ended. “Thank you.” She bit her lip again, steeling herself for what she felt she needed to say. “But Sherlock, this isn’t just about me, it’s about you, too. It’s about us. What we both want. And if you’re not…if you’re happy with the way things have been, then that’s fine, I don’t…”

She was silenced by his lips on hers again, only this time the kiss was far from chaste. His tongue slid along her upper lip until she opened with a small gasp, her hands reaching up to grasp the lapels of his silky blue dressing-gown, into which he’d changed as soon as they returned home. 

His hands moved down to her shoulders and from there to her waist; when he pulled her naked form snugly against his body, she gasped a bit, breaking the kiss and opening her eyes as she felt a warm bulge pressing against her hip. “Yes, Molly, I want to make love to you. I’ve wanted to do so for years, but first the work and then…well, frankly, I was an idiot,” he said, pulling a face. His hands fanned out so that his fingers were brushing against the curve of her arse, his pupils were dilated and his breathing sounded as loud as her own. “But never, ever doubt that I want you as much as you want me.”

That was all the reassurance Molly needed to know that Sherlock wasn’t just doing this for her sake, but for his own as well; she pulled him down for another kiss, much deeper and more passionate than the first. He moved his head down to lay a string of kisses along her throat and shoulder, then spun her around and lifted her in his arms to carry her into their bedroom.

oOo

Negotiating the doorways as if he’d been carrying women through them for years instead of this being his actual first time, Sherlock smiled down at his wife of exactly eight hours and seventeen minutes. Everything he’d just told Molly had been nothing but the unvarnished truth, and he was glad that her earlier hesitance had finally vanished. She was grinning at him, her arms around his neck, one leg slightly kicked up, not saying a single word about how she’d left her wedding gown a crumpled mess on the bathroom floor.

Good. There was only one thing on his mind at the moment, and he was gratified that it was now her sole focus as well.

He didn’t bother switching on the light or shutting the bedroom door; the two of them were alone for the rest of the night and most of the following day as well, since Mrs. Hudson was staying with John and Mary and little Gwyneth for the night. He smirked to himself as he laid Molly on the bed; unless, of course, their landlady found herself invited to spend the night with the older gentleman who’d accompanied Clara to the ceremony. He was some other psychic specialist or other Sherlock hadn’t bothered to remember, and possibly a relative of Clara’s as well.

Irrelevant, unimportant, already deleted. The only thing that mattered was the newly-minted Mrs. Molly Holmes lying back on his bed, her painstakingly curled hair spread out about her on the pillow, her naked body practically calling to him to join her. He shucked his dressing-gown, stepped out of his pyjama bottoms and tossed his t-shirt over his head, then crawled up to join her, leaning down to place a reverent kiss on her lips before tugging her over to sprawl across his eager form.

Molly giggled and kissed him; he could feel her fingers in his curls as he slowly ran his hands over her body, cupping her buttocks and squeezing lightly as her giggles turned to soft sighs and moans. The kiss deepened, his tongue tangling with hers in a languorous dance that only grew in passion as they caressed one another’s bodies. There was no urgency to their actions, only a slow burn that felt as natural as any deduction he’d ever made…and eased his racing mind far better than any drugs he’d ever taken.

He knew her body quite well by now; in fact, he could now admit that he’d known it even before Moriarty forced intimacy upon the two of them. He’d always kept her measurements in his mind palace – the size of her lips, her hips, her waist, her breasts, every detail, meticulously noted with adjustments as she gained or lost weight. The color of her hair and eyes were in there as well, how she looked when she was flushed and angry, when she was sad or happy…every detail. Never deleted. How had it taken him so long to realize she was his solar system, the center of his universe?

He was certain he mumbled some such against her skin as he rolled them so she was underneath him again. He kissed his way down her throat to her collarbones, and her definitely felt and heard another giggle as he did so, but it turned back into those soft sighs and moans he adored as he reached her breasts. Small, yes; perfect, absolutely. He closed his lips over her right nipple and reached up to gently squeeze the left, altering his movements in accordance with the gasps and squeaks she was making. Her hands were still tangled in his hair, stroking his scalp in the soothing motions the both loved.

He slid one hand slowly down her leg, grazing her hip, the outside of her thigh before moving inward. He made his ultimate target quite obvious, but Molly showed no signs of tension, simply sighed and shifted her legs further apart, granting him full access. He dipped his fingertips inside and found that she was, indeed, not only ready but quite eager for him. He flicked his thumb across her clit and was rewarded by the sound of her deepening groans of desire. He worked her with his fingers until he could feel her trembling on the edge, and was about to bring her over when she tugged at his hair. “Sherlock,” Molly gasped, “please, I need you…inside me, now, please!”

He complied instantly, moving his body over hers, leaning on one elbow and positioning himself against her entrance with his other hand. He kissed her as he eased his way inside her, loving the feel of their bodies so close to one another, marveling yet again at how fortunate he’d been to have Molly Hooper in his life all this time – and chastising himself yet again for waiting until Moriarty’s beyond-the-grave return forced him to confront his true feelings for his pathologist.

Now they were married, and he was the one thing he never thought he’d be; truly, deeply loved by a woman he freely admitted he didn’t deserve.

“I love you,” he gasped out, turning his head to capture her lips for a desperate kiss as they moved together. It was only the sixth time he’d uttered those words to her, and he determined to make sure she heard them from him more often in the future.

“Oh, Sherlock, I love you too!” she exclaimed when the kiss ended. No more words were needed, and none were spoken as they brought each other to the edge, Molly sliding over first with a series of harsh gasps and shudders, and Sherlock following swiftly after, moaning out his satisfaction and raining kiss after kiss on her face.

And although they each privately hoped never to have to confront the world of the supernatural ever again, each also knew that if it did happen, they would face it together.


End file.
